Sex abuse survivors to meet with Vatican summit organizers

VATICAN CITY (AP) " Organizers of Pope Francis' summit on preventing clergy sex abuse will meet this week with a dozen survivor-activists who have come to Rome to protest the Catholic Church's response to date and demand an end to decades of cover-up by church leaders.

These survivors will not be addressing the summit of church leaders itself, which begins Thursday. Rather, they will meet Wednesday with the four-member organizing committee to convey their complaints.

Coordinator and Chilean survivor Juan Carlos Cruz told The Associated Press he hopes for a "constructive and open dialogue" and for committee members to convey the survivors' demand that bishops stop pleading ignorance about abuse. He said: "Raping a child or a vulnerable person and abusing them has been wrong since the 1st century, the Middle Ages and now."