For the last four years, the man who is now Pope Benedict XVI had more responsibility than any other Vatican cardinal for deciding whether and how to discipline Roman Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children and teenagers.On Friday mornings, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sat at his desk at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith poring over dossiers detailing allegations of abuse sent in by bishops from around the world. He found the cases so disturbing he called the work ‘‘our Friday penance.’’The sexual abuse scandal changed the church in the US. When the scandal was snowballing in 2002, then-Cardinal Ratzinger was among Vatican officials whose comments seemed to minimise the problem.‘‘In the US, there is constant news on this topic, but less than 1 per cent of priests are guilty of acts of this type,’’ he said during a November 2002 visit to a Catholic university in Spain. ‘‘One comes to the conclusion that it is intentional, manipulated, that there is a desire to discredit the church.’’But as the cases began to flood into his office, he learned the problem was broader and deeper, according to co-workers, American church officials and the head of an American lay delegation that visited him in Rome to discuss the abuse crisis. ‘‘If there’s any pope who knows what he’s talking about when we’re talking about this, it is Cardinal Ratzinger,’’ said Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.It is impossible to assess Ratzinger’s record. The trials are secret and the Congregation and its staff do not release any information about specific cases, the number of cases they have considered, or how the cases have been handled.A change in church rules in 2001, before the abuse scandal exploded in the US, redirected abuse cases to the Congregation and made Ratzinger effectively the chief judge, said the Rev. Augustus Di Noia, a top official at the Congregation. ‘‘We’ve become the experts. We know more about this now practically than anybody in the world,’’ said Di Noia.Throughout the US sexual abuse scandal, many victims and supporters came to view the Vatican as orchestrating a church-wide cover-up. But the more accurate picture may have been that Ratzinger and other Vatican officials were woefully out of touch, said Justice Anne Burke, a judge in Illinois.Before he became pope, Ratzinger indicated his prescription for addressing the tragedy of sexual abuse in the church — more careful screening of candidates to the priesthood and better ‘‘formation’’ of seminary students, especially when it comes to preparing priests for celibate lives. — NYTVatican criticises Spain’s gay-marriage planVATICAN CITY: A top Vatican official on Friday condemned a proposal in the Spanish Parliament that would allow homosexuals to marry and adopt children. ‘‘A law as profoundly iniquitous as this one is not an obligation; it cannot be an obligation,’’ Colombian Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, head of the Pontifical Council on the Family, told Italy’s Corriere della Sera newspaper. Pope Benedict XVI will be formally installed on Sunday amid high security and will receive the symbols of his authority — a Fisherman’s Ring and a white stole embroidered with six black crosses. NATO will patrol the skies and anti-aircraft missiles are being placed around the city. —LAT-WP
