The Vatican on Tuesday for the first time detailed how it has handled more than 3,400 cases of sexual abuse reported since 2004, vowing to learn from its mistakes and potentially opening itself to more lawsuits by accepting that such abuse could fall under a U.N. treaty against torture.
The Holy See defrocked 848 priests and slapped 2,572 clergy members with lesser sanctions in the past decade, said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s permanent observer to the United Nations.
