VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — As the world’s cardinals meet before the conclave to discuss some of the challenges facing the church, U.S. Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said he hoped to offer them some of the lessons learned from the sex abuse crisis.

The retired archbishop of Los Angeles said the biggest mistake was not understanding the true nature of the crime by believing the problem of adults abusing children was merely a moral problem.

“Many of us in the church saw this calamity, through the lens of the church, as a sin and a moral weakness,” he told the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera March 5. The interview was published in Italian.

While abuse is both, he said the church confused its moral view “with what was necessary to solve the problem.”

“I had not understood the…