Vatican hosts scientific seminar on paedophilia

The Vatican, rocked by priestly sexual abuse scandals in several countries, quietly hosted a closed-door seminar of top officials and international medical experts on the problem of paedophilia.

The Vatican said in a statement that eight medical experts delivered presentations on paedophilia to representatives of various Vatican departments at the four-day seminar that ended yesterday.

"During the symposium, the topic of paedophilia was addressed strictly from a scientific and clinical viewpoint," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in the statement, confirming what sources had previously told Reuters.

The guest participants from Germany, Canada and the United States - some of them psychiatrists and most of them non-Catholics - made presentations on the medical, psychological and psychiatric aspects of paedophilia.

The meeting was quietly organised by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Life. It took place in the Vatican old synod hall and most of the guests were housed in a residence inside the Vatican walls.

The seminar was called to give Vatican officials guidance on the psychological nature of paedophilia. The reports included studies on paedophilia in general society and on the medical debate over whether paedophiles could be cured by therapy.

The paedophilia scandal swept several countries last year but its epicentre was in the United States.

The former leader of Boston's Roman Catholic Church, Cardinal Bernard Law, and other former archdiocese officials, face allegations they knew priests had been accused of paedophilia but failed to keep them away from children.

Instead, they shuttled them from parish to parish or left them in the ministry.

Law resigned in December and the US Church has worked out new regulations to get tough with priests accused of sexually abusing children.

But a number of US dioceses are facing a barrage of financially crippling law suits, including 70 new suits filed in Boston in January.

In Boston and elsewhere, the Church has considered selling some of its real estate holdings to settle claims with victims.

Last Tuesday, the diocese of San Bernardino, east of Los Angeles, filed a complaint to make the Boston archdiocese responsible for damages stemming from allegations of paedophilia against the Rev. Paul Shanley.

Shanley was transferred from Boston to San Bernardino in 1990 with a recommendation that he was a priest "in good standing".