The Vatican held a private four-day symposium on pedophilia this week, inviting senior academics and therapists from the United States, Canada and Germany, the church announced Saturday.
The meeting, which began Wednesday and closed Saturday, comes in the wake of sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Church. Vatican officials released little information about the symposium, saying details would be published in a few months.
Church officials participated with "the most qualified experts on the theme," as well as "specialists in recuperative therapy of people affected by this problem," the Vatican said in a brief statement.
The Vatican listed eight professors as having participated, including Dr. Martin P. Kafka of Harvard Medical School; Dr. Ron Langevin of the University of Toronto; Dr. William Marshall of Queens University in Kingston, Canada; Dr. Karl Hanson, a Canadian official; and four German specialists.
"The theme of pedophilia was confronted from a strictly scientific and clinical point of view," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement.
Earlier this week, Vatican official Monsignor Piero Monni spoke of the scandals at a different conference on sexual exploitation, saying the great majority of clergy had behaved in an exemplary manner and should be defended. He added that bishops on all continents have tried to address "the destabilizing parasite that pedophilia is."