VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud
Vatican City, April 11 – Pope Francis on Friday issued his strongest apology yet for the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests. “I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children,” said the pontiff. Some have accused the reform-minded Argentinian pontiff of not being as vocal on the nagging paedophilia issue as he has in his much-publicised campaigns to help the poor and marginalised. Francis promised members of the International Catholic Child Bureau (BICE) that there would be no “step backwards” on punishing sex-abuse culprits and fighting the abuses which are one of his priorities amid a sweeping reform drive.
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