Abused Deaf Argentine Survivors Seeks More Progress
Deaf argentine survivors of abuse by Catholic priests at a school for the deaf in Argentina staged a protest at the Vatican on Friday.
According to the report of GMA News, survivors of church abuse have descended on Rome this week, marking the first anniversary of Pope Francis’ summit of church leaders on preventing abuse with calls for more accountability and acknowledgment of their pain.
On Thursday, three deaf Argentines marched to St. Peter’s Square. They were among the victims of violent sexual abuse by priests in the Argentine branch of the Provolo Institute, a Catholic-run school for the deaf that also saw dozens of victims at its school in Verona, Italy.
Trials for 10 others who worked at the Antonio Provolo Institute for the Deaf, including teachers and a nun, are expected to begin in a few months. They were accused of abusing priests.
About 20 people, including several former students, held up signs reading “Zero Tolerance,” “Don’t Forget,” and “We Are Not Going Away” in front of the building housing the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine for the Faith, which handles abuse cases. The victims’ lawyers and other victims of abuse were among those who joined the protest, as reported by GMA News.
Their aim was to request that the organization, UISG, speak out more about the unacknowledged problem of nuns who abuse children and other nuns. Much of the abuse crisis has focused on priests raping and molesting children.Â
The case in Argentina and a similar one at a school for the deaf in Italy have aroused anger over the particular vulnerability of children and their difficulty in talking about crimes. Little has been said or done about the problem of abuses committed by nuns.
ECA and several other groups of victims traveled to Rome to mark the one-year anniversary of Francis’ Feb. 21-24, 2019 summit, during which he convened the heads of national bishops’ conferences from around the world for a four-day tutorial on preventing sexual abuse.
They said that Pope Francis and the Vatican officials had not done enough to make bishops and other members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church responsible for the cover-up of abuse.
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