“We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred,” – Washington PostIn a remarkable demonstration of public soul-searching, Pope Benedict XVI on Monday Dec 20 used a high-profile Christmas speech to Vatican cardinals and bishops to demand reflection on the flaws in the Church’s very message and culture that permitted a global sexual-abuse scandal.
“We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred,” Benedict said. “We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life, to allow such a thing to happen.”
In his address, which Benedict has used to emphasise his priorities to the assembled hierarchy, the pontiff said the past year’s revelations of decades of sexual abuse of children by priests had taken on an “unimaginable dimension” and amounted to a “humiliation” that should be accepted as an “exhortation to truth and a call to renewal.”
Full report at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/20/AR2010122000915.html?wprss=rss_religion/wires