Pope Taps Experts, Women for Summit

VATICAN CITY (AP) -- Pope Francis has named the Vatican's top sex abuse investigator, a close U.S. ally and lay women working at the Vatican to an organizing committee preparing for a high-stakes summit in February on abuse prevention.

Notably absent from the lineup announced Friday was Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, who heads the pope's sex abuse advisory commission.

The organizing committee includes Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, for a decade the Vatican's sex crimes prosecutor, Francis appointee Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias, a member of Francis' key cardinal advisers, and a member of O'Malley's commission, German Jesuit the Rev. Hans Zollner.

Francis summoned leaders of the world's 130 bishops' conferences to the Vatican Feb. 21-24 after the abuse scandal erupted again in his native South America and the U.S.

(KA)