Leading members of the clergy are gathering Rome this morning for a special summit on the ongoing clerical child sex abuse crisis facing the Catholic Church.
Almost 200 church leaders will gather in Rome for the meeting on child protection.
The four-day summit will include lectures and workshops on preventing assaults, tending to victims and investigating abuse.
Survivors met with organisers and the bishops themselves ahead of the summit.
Archbishop Eamon Martin - who's representing Irish bishops - has apologised to survivors for "too many failures" by the church.
Journalist Michael Rezendes who broke the Boston clerical abuse story for the Boston Globe said it will be difficult to make any real progress at the summit.
“I think there are still people in the Vatican after all this time who are still in denial; who don’t believe this is a serious problem,” he said.
“I think bishops don’t want to be disciplined and I think the bishops in large part, don’t want to relinquish the control that they have.
“They don’t feel like they want to be told what to do.”
Members of international survivor’s organisation Ending Clergy Abuse have gathered in Rome for the summit.
They used a meeting with top Vatican officials to further their demand for the Church to apply a zero tolerance policy to child abuse – including the dismissal of any bishop who covers up the offences.
