Pope Francis has been quoted as saying that reliable data indicates that "about 2%" of clergy in the Catholic Church are paedophiles.
The Pope said that abuse of children was like "leprosy" infecting the Church, according to the Italian La Repubblica newspaper. He vowed to "confront it with the severity it demands".
But a Vatican spokesman said the quotes in the newspaper did not correspond to Pope Francis's exact words. The BBC's David Willey in Rome says there is often a studied ambiguity in Pope Francis' off-the-cuff statements.
He wants to show a more compassionate attitude towards Church teaching than his predecessors, but this can sometimes cause consternation among his media advisers, our correspondent adds.
[h=1]Man reveals how easy it is for pedophiles to prey on teen girls via social media by luring three out of their homes while their parents watch on in horror[/h]
Coby Persin, 21, is a YouTube star who performs pranks and experiments
The New Yorker chatted up three young girls, aged 12, 13, and 14, by pretending to be a 15-year-old who lived nearby
They all agreed to meet him when their parents weren't around, with one even climbing into his van
Pedophiles have been hiding behind the anonymity of the internet for years - but unfortunately, it seems that some teens and tweens think their parents' warnings about the dangers of speaking to strangers online are just unwarranted overreactions.
YouTube star Coby Persin, 21, set out to help some New York-area parents teach their children how real the threat of pedophiles, rapists, and abductors truly is, posing as a teen himself and luring their young daughters into potentially dangerous situations by first striking up conversations with them on Facebook. 'How easy is it for a pedophile to pick up an underage child using social media?' he asks in a new video, quickly proving that it's not very difficult at all.
NOT enough is being done He goes hunting most every weekend, but it’s not wild animals that he has squarely in his sights, though he may disagree. Justin Payne is a pedophile hunter. The 28-year-old construction worker is engaged in a dangerous pursuit that consumes virtually all his free time — as soon as he gets off work, he’s on his smartphone or computer posing as a young girl or boy on dating websites, seeing what sick men are anxious to take his bait. And when they do want to meet, he’s there waiting. With video rolling. The police do not sanction his work. His fans praise his shaming videos as heroic and necessary. Others dismiss him as a misguided vigilante liable to get himself hurt.
He doesn’t care.
Payne is consumed with what he’s doing — determined to out these perverts and scare them silly so they never go kid trolling again. “As soon as they think I’m a child, it turns sexual really fast and they want to meet me as soon as possible,” Payne explains on
