SENIOR Italian church figures, as well as the pope’s spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, yesterday rallied to the defence of Pope Benedict XVI, currently the object of widespread international criticism for his handling of the church’s sex abuse crisis.
In response to German media accusations that the pope had tried to block investigations into the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Fr Marcial Maciel Degollado, Fr Lombardi said: “It is ridiculous and paradoxical for informed people to accuse Cardinal Ratzinger of any type of cover-up.”
He added that it had been the then Cardinal Ratzinger, in his role of prefect of the Congregation for the doctrine of the Faith, who had promoted the original Vatican inquiries into Father Maciel.
Although the Vatican has yet to communicate the findings of a recent apostolic visitation into the now disgraced order, French legionary bishops recently admitted the truth of numerous allegations of sexual impropriety made against Fr Maciel.
Another senior church figure to defend the pope yesterday was the Archbishop of Naples, Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, who said that he was “disconcerted” by the “vehemence and inconsistency” of allegations against the pontiff.
He said: “The pope’s letter to the Irish faithful was both moving and inflexible. In his manner of confronting this serious plague, Pope Benedict has furthermore displayed not only the style but also the very essence of a magisterium, which looks on man from the viewpoint of God.”
Cardinal Severino Poletto of Turin also added his voice in support, saying: “It’s time to put a stop to this whole business . . . If negative things have happened, no one is denying it, and, in his letter to Irish Catholics, which applies to all Catholics in the world, the pope has repeated that we feel shame for that which consecrated people did.”
The influential Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristianadeplored the "ill faith" of the media in Europe and North America.
“Important international sociology studies, applied to religion, have demonstrated that among Protestant pastors, the percentage of those condemned for abuse of minors is double that of Catholic priests . . . and the frequency is 10 times higher among gym teachers and the coaches of youth sports teams.”
Meanwhile, on a day when Maltese bishops expressed their “pain and sense of penitence” for the child abuse crimes of Maltese priests, yet another front in the sex abuse crisis re-emerged.
The Catholic church in New Zealand has confirmed that a former police commissioner is investigating five “historical” cases of clerical child abuse as head of an independent authority. The sex abuse issue is not new in New Zealand, given that eight years ago the church apologised for its handling of sex abuse cases, admitting to 38 of them.
The New Zealand confirmation comes a day after the Archbishop of Johannesburg, Buti Tlihagale, said that the Catholic church in Africa was “inflicted with the same scourge” of sexual abuse as the church in Europe.