Dozens of sex abuse cases committed by members of the clergy over six decades emerged on Monday from an independent report into a northern Italian diocese that considered a far longer timescale than others produced by the Italian Catholic Church.

Dozens of children in northern Italy were sexually abused by priests for more than six decades, according to a groundbreaking report commissioned by the Catholic Church. An independent report prepared for the diocese of Bolzano-Brixen found 67 cases of clerical sexual abuse occurred in the diocese between 1963 and 2023.