SCOTLAND
Scotsman
By EMMA COWING
Published on Sunday 2 December 2012
THE man widely tipped to be the next Pope told an audience in Glasgow yesterday that the Catholic Church will not grow unless it deals with the sex abuse scandal that has rocked it in recent years.
Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, warned the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland that sex abuse was a “criminal moral cancer” and that the Catholic Church will not recover “until every cell is excised”.
He said: “Few, if any, people 50 years ago expected the dark stain of sexual abuse to have spread so widely across the church, while varying in extent even within countries. It does not need to be said that this is the most important and powerful barrier to the New Evangelisation.”
He also admitted the Catholic Church in Australia had not dealt properly with sexual abuse within the church.
“It is shameful and shocking that this abuse, with its tragic toll on those who were abused and on their families, was committed by Catholic priests and church workers,” he said during a speech at the Glasgow City Chambers.
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