Russian TV channel NTV spoke with Researching Reform this morning about child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church ahead of a landmark summit tackling clergy abuse.

The four-day conference, which Pope Francis has called the Protection of Minors Summit, starts tomorrow and will cover specific areas within child abuse and the Church:

• Responsibility on Thursday;
• Accountability on Friday and
• Transparency on Saturday.

Sunday will see over 100 bishops and Catholic leaders from around the world gather for Mass in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace. The summit is the first of its kind, and comes as Catholic officials grow anxious about the effect the mounting number of abuse claims against the clergy is having on the Church’s reputation.

NTV asked us about recent and non-recent child sexual abuse within Catholic institutions in England, the Child Abuse Inquiry’s efforts into investigating this area and one controversial aspect of the phenomenon which we felt was concerning, and was being overlooked by the Church. We also discussed ways in which the Church can protect children from abuse and the little that has been done to date to implement better protections for children within these communities.

You can watch the interview, which has been dubbed in Russian, here.

A very big thank you to NTV’s Liza and Boris.