Italian ex-priest, founder of drug shelters, in abuse trial

An octogenarian former priest admired throughout Italy for his work against drug and alcohol addiction faces charges of molesting children, the ANSA news agency reported Friday.

Don Pierino Gelmini, 85, will go on trial on March 29, 2011, the report said.

Don Gelmini, a frequent guest on media broadcasts and considered close to the Italian right, founded the Incontro (Encounter) community in 1963 to help drug addicts reintegrate into society.

An investigation against Don Gelmini opened in 2008 after several young Incontro residents lodged complaints.

ANSA said 12 cases were in the dossier against the priest, who has denied any wrongdoing but left the priesthood shortly after the accusations surfaced.

The organisation has grown to include shelters in France, Spain, the United States, Brazil and Thailand.

In January 2005, billionaire Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi made a personal gift of five million euros (six million dollars) for Incontro shelters in Thailand after Southeast Asia's tsunami disaster.

The Roman Catholic Church has been rocked by a deluge of paedophile priest scandals that have swept Europe and North America since late last year.

Italy has remained out of the spotlight, but a top bishop recently gave a first official figure on cases in Italy, saying the Church had carried out some 100 canonical investigations of priests suspected of abuse in the country over the past 10 years.

And last month a bishop was named as a witness in a trial of a priest on sexual abuse charges.