Pope ‘deeply ashamed’ over sexual abuse by priests

In his most extensive remarks so far on the issue, the Pope expressed his personal remorse about the abuse scandal and said the church is increasing its efforts to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” he said. “As I read the histories of those victims it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way. Their mission was to give healing, to give the love of God to these children. We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future.”

Apparently drawing a distinction between priests with homosexual tendencies and those inclined to molest children, the Pontiff said: “I would not speak at this moment about homosexuality, but pedophilia which is another thing. And we would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry.” Who is guilty of pedophilia cannot be a priest, he added.

The Pope said church officials were going through the seminaries that train would-be priests to make sure that those candidates have no such tendencies. “We’ll do all that is possible to have a strong discernment, because it is more important to have good priests than to have many priests.” “We hope that we can do, and we have done and will do in the future, all that is possible to heal this wound.”

The Pope is not new to issues involving abusive priests. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger he headed the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and was responsible for deciding whether to discipline priests accused of sexual abuse.

He read dossiers on the cases forwarded to him from bishops around the world. Aides said he was deeply distressed reading the accounts of victims whose trust in the church was betrayed by the priests who violated them.

In a homily he gave just before he was elected Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger decried the “filth” in the priesthood, which many interpreted as a reference to the abusers. As Pope, he ordered the Rev. Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaires of Christ, to be removed from his ministry and to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penitence. Rev Maciel died in February.

But as Pope, he has done or said or done little publicly about the abuse issue until now.

Advocates for victims have criticized the church for failing to call to account bishops who allowed abusive priests to remain in the ministry.

After hearing of Pope Benedict’s remarks, Peter Isley, a national board member of the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests, said: : “The Pope has established a worldwide policy of saying Mass in Latin. He has not established a worldwide policy on child sex abuse. Three year into his papacy, Benedict has done what John Paul II did — make a few vague, brief remarks about the continuing crisis, and nothing more.”