Sawt Falasteen - Italy Church abuse group highlights toll on families

Organisers said it was the first such association in Italy, where the culture of silence surrounding the sexual abuse of minors by priests is still strong, despite efforts by Pope Francis to tackle the problem.

One mother, Claudia, described how her devastation at discovering her two young sons had been abused by a priest was compounded when "the entire parish abandoned us".

"It was hell," as the community "turned its back on us" and "made fun of us", she told journalists at a news conference organised by the Rete L'Abuso association to launch the network.

The Catholic Church worldwide is still trying to manage a tide of revelations about paedophile priests going back decades.

But campaigners say Italy, where the Vatican still holds considerable influence, has been slow to confront the problem.

During the launch of the new "Survivors' Families" group, parents of children abused shared heartbreaking stories -- of regret that they were unaware of the crimes until much later, or anger that trust in their priests had been betrayed.

"Many of us have lost our faith because of the Church itself," said Cristina Balestrini, whose son tried to kill himself three times after being abused by a priest.

"For families, it's hard to explain that a crime of abuse creates a victim but also [affects] so many other people close to them," she said.

- 'Systemic deficiencies' -

The creation of the new network was prompted by the recent suicide of a couple from Turin, who had campaigned for better protection for children.

They died two years after their daughter, who had been abused by a relative when she was five or six, killed herself aged 28.

Pope Francis has taken numerous measures to tackle abuse, from opening up internal Church documents to making it compulsory to report suspicions of sexual assault to Church authorities.

Victims' rights groups, however, say much more is needed.

National inquiries have exposed the scale of the abuse in many countries, including the United States, France and Australia -- but not yet in Italy.

In January, the northern diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone published its own independent study, reporting 60 cases of sexual abuse by priests since 1964. It warned of the "systemic deficiencies" within the Church that allowed it to happen.

B.Mahmoud--SF-PST