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VATICAN CITY — The Vatican denied Sunday that its celibacy requirement for priests was the root cause of the clerical sex abuse scandal convulsing the church in Europe and again defended the pope’s handling of the crisis.
Suggestions that the celibacy rule was in part responsible for the “deviant behavior” of sexually abusive priests have swirled in recent days. Much of the furor was spurred by comments from one of the pope’s closest advisers, Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, who called last week for an honest examination of issues like celibacy and priestly education to root out the origins of sex abuse.
