Vatican sex crimes prosecutor named auxiliary bishop of Malta

Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor, has been named auxiliary bishop of Malta, an Associated Press report said.

Scicluna, who was dubbed “promotor of justice,” worked directly under then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.

“He carried out this role very differently to others, both within the Vatican and outside,” said Iacopo Scaramuzzi, a journalist from the independent online newspaper Linkiesta.

“With determination, humanity and without diplomatic hesitation… the Maltese prelate had shown himself, in all these years, to have been a great man,” Scaramuzzi was quoted in a report in Malta Today.

Andrea Tornelli of La Stampa said Scicluna “embodied the line of zero tolerance of sexual abuse against minors, adopted by Benedict XVI and supported the Pope’s efforts to change canonical laws and existing laws and above all, the mentality: he placed special emphasis on the suffering of abuse victims and promulgated a series of ’emergency’ laws.

“Not surprisingly, these special laws sparked an internal debate in the Holy See,” Torneilli was quoted as saying.

The report said “a grand career” in the Vatican appears to have been “somewhat punctured” by his appointment as auxiliary bishop of Malta.

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