• With reference to the article “Bishop ‘shocked’ on Xarabank: TMI has evidence he had documents on priest sexual abuse case in 2013”, published on The Malta Independent online, the Curia’s Communications Office would like to clarify the following.

    When Bishop Charles J. Scicluna, Apostolic Administrator, was expressing his shock during Xarabank at learning about the case through the media, he was referring to the criminal case filed before the Courts and the fact that the priest had not appeared in Court on three occasions, an action by the priest for which Bishop Scicluna expressed his anger. Since the matter was being investigated by the Response Team, there could be no doubt that the Church authorities, including Bishop Scicluna, knew about the allegation, but they had to wait for the outcome of the Response Team investigation before taking any action. During Xarabank, the Bishop himself referred to this investigation and described its delay as unacceptable. 

    Moreover, Bishop Scicluna emphasised that hiding such cases is shameful and appealed to all those who had any information to report it to the relevant authorities.

    As prosecutor for the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, Bishop Scicluna had spent more than a decade fighting all forms of sexual abuse. He is determined to do the same in Malta.

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