Catholic leaders from around the world gathered on Monday, February 6 for an unprecedented Vatican summit to find ways to root out paedophilia in the clergy that came under heavy criticism from victims.
Bishops from 100 countries and the leaders of 33 religious orders will take part in the four-day meeting, as well as the Vatican's anti-abuse prosecutor Charles Scicluna and just one abuse victim, Ireland's Marie Collins.
Pope Benedict XVI is expected to issue a special blessing for the closed-door conference, which will also launch a child protection centre in Germany to fight sex abuse by the clergy in the Church worldwide.
The symposium, entitled "Towards Healing and Renewal", will also include a church service on Tuesday in which representatives of seven religious orders which had paedophile clergy in their midst will plead for forgiveness.
Victims' groups said they were not invited and slammed it as a PR stunt.
"You don't need a jolly in Rome to learn what the right thing to do is," said Sue Cox from Survivors Voice, a coalition of victim support groups covering Britain, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United States. "This is just a PR stunt. It's just theatre really. It's no use whatsoever," Cox, herself a victim of abuse by a priest who says she still gets panic attacks from the smell of "whisky, incense and stale sweat" said, according to AFP.
The Roman Catholic Church has been rocked in recent years by thousands of paedophilia scandals, some of them dating back decades. Cases of abusive priests and cover-ups began to go public in Ireland and the United States but have since been reported across much of Europe. Officials say there is also a hidden abuse crisis in parts of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
