Pope: Church must reflect on what caused clergy child sex abuse

(December 20, 2010) Pope Benedict XVI on Monday called on the Catholic Church to reflect on what is wrong with its message and Christian life in general that allowed for the widespread sexual abuse of children by priests. The Pope said the church must better train priests so that abusers aren't ordained and must figure out how to help heal victims of paedophile clergy. The Pope made the remarks at a traditional pre-Christmas meeting with cardinals and bishops who run various Vatican departments and offices. The Holy Father noted that revelations of child sex abuse cases reached “an unimaginable dimension” in 2010 that required the church to accept the “humiliation” as a call for renewal. “We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustices that occurred,” Pope Benedict insisted, adding, “We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen.” “We must discover a new resoluteness in faith and in doing good.” “We are well aware of the particular gravity of this sin committed by priests and of our corresponding responsibility,” Pope Benedict told the cardinals and Vatican officials. But he said the crimes of the priests also had to be looked at in the broader social context, in which child pornography and sexual tourism is rampant and to some degree considered normal, and where as recently as the 1970s paedophilia wasn't considered the absolute evil that it is today. “The psychological destruction of children, in which human persons are reduced to articles of merchandise, is a terrifying sign of the times,” the Pope warned, calling for a renewed sense of morality, stressing absolute good and evil, to guide the faithful.
In his talk to the Vatican officials, Pope Benedict also dwelt considerably upon the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East held in the Vatican in October, particularly highlighting the increasing violence and discrimination to which Christians are subject in the region. He noted that “in the present situation, Christians are the most oppressed and tormented minority.” He also recalled his 4-day visit to the United Kingdom in September, focussing particularly on the figure of Cardinal John Henry Newman whom he declared Blessed.