Vatican spokesman Father
Federico Lombardi on Friday hailed movies such as Spotlight and
mobilization by pedophilia victims' right organizations in what
he called "the long march in the fight against abuses against
minors in the universal Catholic Church".
"May they be welcome... if they contribute to sustain and
intensify" the fight against child sexual abuse by priests,
Lombardi said in a statement to Vatican Radio.
The spokesman said "abuse cases have become very rare
and...the majority of those being talked about today and that
keep coming to light belong to a relatively distant past".
"Much remains to be done in other countries due to very
different cultural situations... but the path that needs to be
taken has become clearer," Lombardi said.
Victims' groups have been calling for the resignation of
the head of the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy,
Australian Archbishop George Pell, who has testified this week
before an Australian commission investigating child sexual abuse
by predator priests.
Speaking via video link from a Roman hotel, Pell said he
had no idea that priest Gerald Ridsdale was repeatedly
transferred by the bishop in the town of Ballarat for more than
a decade because of pedophilia accusations.
The commission is investigating cases from the 1970s and
1980s, when Pell was a priest in the Ballarat diocese where the
abuse occurred.
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