WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI told America’s Roman Catholic leaders Wednesday evening that the clergy sex-abuse scandal has sometimes been “very badly handled,” his harshest criticism yet regarding the crisis that has badly damaged the U.S. church.
Benedict’s remarks came at a prayer service with hundreds of American bishops at a national shrine in Washington.
Benedict addressed clerical molesters in the wider context of secularism and the oversexualization of America.
“What does it mean to speak of child protection when pornography and violence can be viewed in so many homes through media widely available today?” he asked.
The pope spoke after Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
George said that the consequences of the clergy-abuse scandal “and of its being sometimes very badly handled by bishops makes both the personal faith of some Catholics and the public life of the church herself more problematic.”
Benedict seemed to agree.
“Responding to this situation has not been easy, and, as the president of your episcopal conference has indicated, it was sometimes very badly handled,” he said.
Benedict said to remember that the vast majority of priests served faithfully but that it also was the bishops’ “God-given responsibility” to reach out to those who had been “so seriously wronged.”
Earlier, Benedict drew an adoring crowd of 13,500 to the South Lawn of the White House, where his 81st birthday was celebrated with President Bush — complete with choruses of “Happy Birthday” and a big cake.
That didn’t stop the pope from gently nudging the U.S. in a White House speech to use diplomacy to resolve international disputes. Benedict and Bush spoke alone in the Oval Office for 45 minutes, and a joint statement said the two “reaffirmed their total rejection of terrorism as well as the manipulation of religion to justify immoral and violent acts against innocents.”
Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput is to celebrate Mass with the pope today at Washington Nationals Stadium.
