UNITED STATES
Frontline
[Secrets of the Vatican – Frontline]
March 5, 2014, 1:23 pm ET by Jason M. Breslow
In one of his first public comments on the issue of clergy sex abuse, Pope Francis defended the Catholic Church’s response to the crisis, telling an Italian newspaper, “no one else has done more.”
The pope’s statements marked one of his boldest replies yet to criticism of the church’s handling of abuse cases, and came a month after a highly critical United Nations report found cause for alarm with the Vatican’s past and present practices.
“The cases of abuse are awful because they leave profound wounds,” Francis said. But, he added: “The Catholic Church is maybe the only institution to have moved with transparency and responsibility. No one else has done more. Yet the church is the only one to be attacked.”
One year into his papacy, Francis has taken several steps to address the abuse scandal. In July, he overhauled Vatican law to specify sexual violence against children as a crime. Five months later, he established a commission to advise him on how to protect children from pedophile priests and on how to counsel victims.
At the same time, the Vatican declined to cooperate with the U.N. investigation, which concluded “that the Holy See has not acknowledged the extent of the crimes committed, has not taken the necessary measures to address cases of child sexual abuse and to protect children, and has adopted policies and practices which have led to the continuation of the abuse by and the impunity of the perpetrators.”
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