Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead his weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican.
Pope Francis waves as he arrives to lead his weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican November 12, 2014. Reuters/Tony Gentile

Pope Francis has formed a commission whose sole responsibility is to handle the sexual abuse appeals lodged by convicted priests. The committee will be composed of seven bishops or cardinals who will focus on attending to the backlog of appeals. According to Reuters, the Vatican managed to defrock only 850 priests over sexual abuse of minors from 2004 to 2013.

Citing an unidentified Vatican spokesman, Reuters said the church receives an average of four or five appeals per month alluding to "delicta graviora" cases. The latter is the Vatican terminology for grave offenses including sexual abuse of minors conducted by the clergy.

But the commission is only tasked to handle appeals. An existing office in the doctrinal department will continue to handle initial cases.

Sebastian Cuattromo, director of advocacy group Adultxs for the Rights of Infancy, told The Associated Press the Roman Catholic church "still has a long way to go" in so far as enacting a faster resolution on sex abuse cases. Pope Francis early this year committed to clergy sex abuse victims. He will ensure that clerics will be made accountable for sheltering paedophile priests.

Meanwhile, Turkish architects have called on Pope Francis not to visit the controversial new 1,000-room palace of President Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara this month. In a letter, Turkey's Chamber of Architects told the pope "not to legitimize the construction, which is illegal according to international laws, by attending the ceremony to be held at the unlicensed building." Known as the Ak Saray (White Palace), Pope Francis will be the Presidential Palace's first ever guest when it gets inaugurated on Nov 28.

The architects also sent Pope Francis a report that details case documents and court decisions over the controversial construction of the new palace. The Presidential Palace in situated on a 150,000-square-meter area inside the historic Atatürk Forest Farm. The area, according to the architects, is one of the most well-preserved green spaces in Ankara. The group claimed hundreds of trees were cut down just for the construction of the palace, which boasts of 1,000 rooms, larger than the White House, the Kremlin and Buckingham Palace, the portal hurriyetdailynews.com said.