Pope summons senior bishops over clergy abuse

Pope Francis has called on the presidents of every global bishops conference to attend a February summit to deliberate on how to prevent clergy sex abuse and ensure children are protected, the Vatican announced Wednesday.

The meeting, scheduled for Feb. 21–24, 2019, comes as the Roman Catholic Church tries to respond to more revelations of church abuse on a global scale. Last month, an investigation revealed that more than 300 Catholic priests abused more than 1,000 children in Pennsylvania. Francis will meet on Thursday with U.S. Catholic leaders to discuss the ramifications of the report.

Meanwhile, two German media outlets—Spiegel Online and Die Zeit—reported Wednesday that a report ordered by the German Bishops’ Conference reveals that between 1946 and 2014 more than 3,000 people accused 1,670 members of the Roman Catholic clergy in the country of sexual abuse. More than half of the victims were age 13 or younger and were mostly male, the news sites noted.