Pope Francis says child abuse is “a kind of psychological murder”

The Pope Francisco today criticized child abuse and said that they are “a kind of ‘psychological murder’ and in many cases a cancellation of childhood”, and described as a “sore” the phenomenon of pedophilia, which he asked “to stop covering up.”

Francis spoke in these terms during an audience he held in the Vatican with members of the Italian association Meter, which has been fighting pedophilia since its foundation in 1989 and which the pope described as “the ‘home’ of many children who have been raped. in their innocence or enslaved by the selfishness of adults ”.

Jorge Bergoglio highlighted that “the protection of children against sexual exploitation is a duty of all States, called upon to identify both traffickers and abusers” and indicated as necessary “the reporting and prevention implemented in the different areas of society: school, sports, recreational and cultural, religious communities, single people”.

He opted for “preparing specific interventions for effective help to the victims” and rejected that these problems be hidden: “Even today we see how many times in families, the first reaction is to cover everything; a first reaction that is also present in other institutions and in the Church. We have to fight with this old habit of covering up”, he condemned.

“Unfortunately, the abuses perpetrated against children continue. I am referring in particular to the requests that are made through the Internet and the various social networks, with pages and portals dedicated to child pornography. This is a scourge that, on the one hand, needs to be tackled with renewed determination by public institutions and, on the other, requires a greater awareness of families and the various educational organizations”, he stressed.