Sex abuse survivors to meet with Vatican summit organizers

Pope Francis delivers his message during the Angelus noon prayer in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Sunday, Feb. 17, 2019. The pontiff is asking for prayers for this week's sex abuse summit at the Vatican, calling abuse an "urgent challenge of our time." (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

VATICAN CITY – Organizers of Pope Francis' summit on preventing clergy sex abuse will meet this week with a dozen survivor-activists who have come to Rome to protest the Catholic Church's response to date and demand an end to decades of cover-up by church leaders.

These survivors will not be addressing the summit of church leaders itself, which begins Thursday. Rather, they will meet Wednesday with the four-member organizing committee to convey their complaints.

Coordinator and Chilean survivor Juan Carlos Cruz told The Associated Press he hopes for a "constructive and open dialogue" and for committee members to convey the survivors' demand that bishops stop pleading ignorance about abuse. He said: "Raping a child or a vulnerable person and abusing them has been wrong since the 1st century, the Middle Ages and now."