Vatican Defends Pope Over Abuse Scandal

(AP)  The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland, and contended he has long confronted abuse cases with courage.

In separate interviews, both the Holy See's spokesman and its prosecutor for sex abuse of minors by clergy sought to defend the pope.

After decades of similar scandals in the United States, Ireland and elsewhere, the sex abuse scandal moved closer to Benedict in recent days.

After accusations of abuse connected to the Regensburg boys choir directed by the pope's elder brother for some 30 years, the Munich archdiocese acknowledged Friday that it had transferred a suspected pedophile priest to community work while Benedict was archbishop there.

Criticism has also mounted over a 2001 church directive Benedict wrote while a Vatican cardinal, instructing bishops to keep abuse cases confidential.

"It's rather clear that in the last days, there have been those who have tried, with a certain aggressive persistence, in Regensburg and Munich, to look for elements to personally involve the Holy Father in the matter of abuses," Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told Vatican Radio.

"For any objective observer, it's clear that these efforts have failed," Lombardi said, reiterating his statement a day earlier noting the Munich diocese has insisted that Benedict wasn't involved in the decision, while archbishop there, to transfer the suspected child abuser.

Lombardi cited an interview with the Italian bishops conference daily Avvenire Saturday, in which the Vatican's prosecutor for sex abuse cases, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, contended that the future pope dealt firmly with the abuse.

"To accuse the current pope of hiding (cases) is false and defamatory," Scicluna said.

Avvenire Interview (In Italian, 3.12.10)

As Vatican cardinal in charge of the policy on sex abuse, the future pope, "showed wisdom and firmness in handling these cases," said Scicluna, a Maltese prelate in an interview entitled "The Church is tough on pedophilia."

The Archdiocese of Munich and Freising announced late Friday it was setting up a new task force to focus on raising awareness about an preventing sexual abuse within the church and its institutions.

"There is no 100 percent protection against sexual abuse, because we can never rule out the failure or misdoing of individuals, but we want to apply ourselves 100 percent to prevent it from happening again," said the General Vicar of the archdiocese, Prelate Peter Beer.

The new task force will also collaborate with the workgroup tasked with working through allegations of past abuse. Beer said that group would be expanded to include an external, independent legal office. The archdiocese, where Pope Benedict XVI served as Archbishop from 1977 to 1982, set up the workgroup last month after allegations of abuse in a church-run school surfaced.

Thomas Mayer told Germany's Der Spiegel weekly that he had been sexually and physically abused while singing in the Regensburger Domspatzen boys choir through 1992.

Mayer's abuse allegations, published Saturday, are the first that overlap with the tenure of the pontiff's brother Georg Ratzinger, who led group from 1964 to 1994. Previously reported cases of sexual abuse dates back to the late 1950s.

More for Der Spiegel (in English):
"The Church Is Not a Criminal Organization" (Der Spiegel, 3.12.10)
Former Regensburg Choirboys Talk of "Naked Beatings" (Der Spiegel, 3.08.10)

Mayer charged in Spiegel that he had been raped by older pupils. Spiegel quoted him as saying that pupils were forced to have anal sex with one another in the apartment of a prefect at the church-run boarding school attached to the choir. The Regensburg diocese has refused to comment on the report.

[gorgeousm]

Amended Version:

WHICH RELIGION IS THE BEST AND THE TRUEST? AND WHO'S GOD SMELLS THE BEST?

Jesus, who I resemble in looks, was ok.
God is ok.
It's religion that's the poison and that divides.

Can you make the distinction, between religion which is based on man-made delusions, dreams, fabrications, and based on subjective minds of the MEN who sold their very own concepts, thereby duping the people?
Duping the people who had no libraries, internet, and no foundations of knowledge, science or logic, was easy way back then!
God?
He or She also thinks that religion stinks to high heaven.

[gorgeousm]

Correction in title:
THE STAINED GLASS CURTAIN YOU'RE HIDING BEHIND ONLY BLOCKS OUT THE SUN

[gorgeousm]

THE STAINED GLASS CURTAIN YOUR HIDING BEHIND ONLY BLOCKS OUT THE SUN

It's unfortunate that we still have to listen to and be lectured by, blinded-by-religious mentality, Catholic Church apologist ilk, such as servorum.

The spiral of CONTINUING TO COVER UP and pass on misconceived beliefs of the infallibility of murderous, sadistic, lying, Catholic Church officials continues.

It is one thing to express one's dislike of harsh criticism regarding the horrible injustices that the CC committed, but to deny the one-thousand-plus years' reign of terror, murder, thievery, plunder, torture of innocent victims, etc, as if those precious lives - snuffed out and destroyed by the CC - meant absolutely nothing, is beyond any trace of decency.

You servorum who are so blinded and brainwashed, are urged to learn at least a small percentage of what the CC and its leaders(from popes to cardinals, to bishops and priests) are guilty of. Perhaps you, servorum, will act righteously and confess their sins FOR THEM, in order that their millions of innocent victims' souls do not come to you and seek retribution for your WILLFUL attempts to further diminish their worth, and to absolve the acts of murdering them.

[servorum]

gorgeosum,
If you knew anything about the history of the Church, which you don't, or anything about the history of the clerical abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, which you don't, we might have an intelligent dialogue.
Unfortunately you have nothing but unsupportable nonsense and pure venom to spit at the Church, which is the Body of Christ.

You are indeed blind, because you have only bigoted opinions - without any actual facts to back them up - with which to express your rage against Jesus Christ and his Church.

No one in the Church denies the reality of the clerical abuse scandal, but if you look at some of my earlier posts you will see that I have simply tried to put the whole thing into perspective in order to provide some sort of balance; balance that you lack because of your blind hatred.

You don't want to know the truth about the Church, nor will you ever allow yourself to learn any of the actual facts about the terrible period the Church is going through right now, so I don't find you at all worthy of anymore time wasting.

However, the "terror, murder, plunder" etc you list is typical of those who prefer to learn their Church ?history? from such haters as Tony Alamo and Jack Chick.

Because of the garbage you have posted, none of which is true, I have no respect for you whatsoever. You are separated from the true Church of Jesus Christ and therefore separated from Christ himself.

I thank God every day of my life for the grace of being a Catholic, and in particular for being an informed Catholic who has spent literally decades studying history, theology, doctrine and scripture.

You, apparently, have simply wasted your life.
God help you.

[lambor59]

God bless the Catholic church and blind fold its people so they cannot see the real crimes committed by those priests against children.

[servorum]

God bless the Catholic Church and may God open the eyes of those who are blind to the truth of its history and who hate Christ and his Church without a cause.

[perk235]

Follow the records of the church on known child abusers and see how they were absolved and then moved from congregation to congregation, spreading their abuse far and wide.

[lambor59]

Vatican is defending the Pope because Vatican is the ***** house and the Pope is the #1 customer.

[lambor59]

The Pope must confess his sin and be castrated along with his bishop lovers.

Final resolution,

Dissolve the Catholic church.

How many more children must endure this cult?

[gorgeousm]

Worthy of mention pertaining to the Catholic Church's cruel and bloody history:

It was the Crusades, in the name of the Catholic Church that inflicted millions of deaths to both Moslem and Jewish people, invading these peoples' 'Holy Land' countries.
.

[servorum]

God bless the Catholic Church and may God open the eyes of those who are blind to the truth of history and who hate Christ and his Church without a cause.

[perk235]

Here is some of the Catholic Church's history:

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland faced demands for his resignation today after he admitted taking part in meetings where the victims of a notorious paedophile priest were forced to take a vow of silence.

Cardinal Se?n Brady, the Primate of All Ireland, confirmed he was present at a secret canonical tribunal in 1975 where two teenage victims of Father Brendan Smyth were ordered to sign agreements under oath that they would not discuss what happened to them with anybody other than an approved priest.

Smyth, whose abuse of hundreds of children over a 40-year period brought down an Irish government, was finally jailed in the mid-1990s and died in prison.

[URunderarrest]

The Pope is a liar and an ex Nazi. It takes a certain type of person to have willfully joined the Nazi party. I wouldn't put it past the pope to have been one of the hundreds of child molesters in the catholic church. The catholic church should be banned from the United States for the crimes they have committed against children. I would be ashamed of being catholic. The Pope has to go. He helped in the cover up of all these perverts in a criminal organization, and that's exactly what Catholics are, criminals no different than all the people on the states' sex offenders list.

[waynenipper]

The Catholic Church is a blatantly hypocritical, medieval, outdated, covetous, glutinous, money-grubbing institution, complicit in activities bordering on the criminal for protecting and not exposing pedophile priests, and continues to survive over the centuries through the exploitation of human frailties, fear, and the promise of eternal salvation for those whose unabashed and incredible ignorance is such as to blind them to such scandalous deceit.

To quote the Greek philosopher Plato ... ?Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.? That is the foundation on which this church was built and has moved on over the millennia with its insidious objectives into the lives of so many unfortunate fools. Widespread ignorance in societies ... that is how this church survives.

Hopefully, Karma will deal, or will have dealt, with those who purvey(ed) their pathetically deceitful, self-serving/self-righteous religious dogma, while simultaneously preying upon the naivet? of narrow minded, unthinking, irrational adults, and the innocence and trust of the most vulnerable in our society ... children.

[servorum]

God bless the Catholic Church and may God open the eyes of those who are blind to the truth of history and who hate Christ and his Church without a cause.

[tatosonny72]

This is not unusual for a Catholic Priest or for the Catholic itself is involve with any terrible things, from abusing children, steeling money, killing, murder,wars,using the name of God to invade etc. and not only Catholic, almost all churches uses the name of GOD and Jesus to kill, discriminate, abuse, war,Salem witch murder,and Spanish inquisition,. We should be reminded that most of the Leaders that spread war, their ideology is rooted from church teachings.. and all that, Religions has done nothing but, spread evil in the world.,Heads of Catholic church in Vatican, are Evil, they hide in that very luxurious house and their golden suit,.

I believe that the Pope is involve in this children abuse,. they all are.