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Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday blamed the
church's own sins for the clerical abuse scandal - not a campaign
mounted by outsiders - and called for profound purification to end
what he called the "greatest persecution" the church has endured.

      His strong comments placed responsibility for the crisis
squarely on the sins of pedophile priests, repudiating the
Vatican's initial response to the scandal in which it blamed the
media as well as pro-choice and pro-gay marriage advocates for
mounting what it called a campaign against the church and the pope.


      Speaking en route to Portugal, Benedict said the Catholic church
had always suffered from problems of its own making but that
"today we see it in a truly terrifying way."


      "The greatest persecution of the church doesn't come from
enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the
church," the pontiff said. "The church needs to profoundly
relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also
justice."


      The comments marked Benedict's most thorough admission of the
church's own guilt in creating the scandal. Previously he has
blamed abusers themselves and, in the case of Ireland, the bishops
who failed to stop them.


      He was responding to journalists' questions, submitted in
advance, aboard the papal plane as he flew to Portugal. His
four-day visit will take him from Lisbon to the famed Fatima shrine
to Portugal's second city, Porto.


      It is not known whether Benedict would make further remarks
about the scandal during the trip, but there have been no reported
cases of sex abuse in Portugal, unlike in Malta, where Benedict met
with abuse victims on a trip there last month.


      Despite the Vatican's initial, defensive response to hundreds of
clerical abuse reports in Europe, Benedict has promised that the
church would take action to protect children and make abusive
priests face justice. He has already started cleaning house,
accepting the resignations of a few bishops who either admitted
they molested youngsters or covered up for priests who did.


      But critics say he still hasn't done nearly enough to repair the
damage or protect children from a culture of secrecy that allowed
priests to rape and molest children for decades unchecked. Some
have noted that while Benedict has accepted some bishops'
resignations, no bishop has been actively punished or defrocked,
even those who admitted to molesting children.

      "Many are tiring of hearing about his 'strong comments."' They
want to see strong action," said David Clohessy, director of the
main U.S. victims' group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by
Priests.


      While Portugal has not experienced the surge in reports of abuse
by priests that has emerged in other European countries, including
Benedict's native Germany, it is facing similar financial problems
as other European nations.


      Portugal's economic growth has been pedestrian for years,
averaging less than 1 percent between 2001-2008, and the global
downturn brought a steep contraction of 2.7 percent last year. A
three-year austerity plan to ease the country's crippling debt load
is expected to bring greater hardship to a people already feeling
the pinch.


      Portuguese President Anibal Cavaco Silva referred to the
financial crisis in his speech greeting Benedict at Lisbon's
airport, saying the pontiff was visiting at a time of uncertainty
that had tested Portugal's strength as a community.


      "In these times, men require someone bearing a message of hope
to meet their thirst for justice and solidarity," he told the
pontiff.


      Church bells rang out as the pontiff proceeded through Lisbon
from the airport in his popemobile. Several thousand people lined
the streets on a rainy day, some shouting, "Viva o Papa!" Some
stretches of the route were thinly attended, however.


      Benedict, for his part, said the crisis demonstrated the need
for greater moral responsibility in running the global financial
system and noted that he outlined his vision for more ethics in
finance in his 2009 encyclical "Charity in Truth."


      He called for greater dialogue within the financial system about
ethical considerations.


      Similarly, the pontiff called for greater dialogue between faith
and the secular world. Portugal is nearly 90 percent Catholic, but
only around 2 million of the country's 10.6 million people describe
themselves as practicing their faith.

      As has been the case with much of western Europe, Portugal has
also drifted away from church teaching on key issues.


      Portugal's center-left Socialist government passed a law in 2007
allowing abortion. In 2008, it introduced a law allowing a judge to
grant a divorce even if one spouse is opposed. In January,
Parliament passed a bill seeking to make the country the sixth in
Europe allowing same-sex couples to marry. Cavaco Silvo now has to
decide whether to veto or ratify that bill.

      In his airport remarks, Benedict sharply criticized Portugal's
abortion law, saying public officials must give "essential
consideration" to issues that affect human life.


      "The point at issue is not an ethical confrontation between a
secular and religious system, so much as a question about the
meaning that we give to our freedom," he said.

      Benedict also praised Portugal's Catholic heritage, saying it
was a "great force of faith" in spreading Catholicism around the
globe, from Brazil to Africa, during colonial times.


      Despite the country's increasingly secular bent, religious
sentiment runs deep. At least 500,000 people are expected to attend
the pope's Mass in Fatima on May 13, the anniversary of the day in
1917 when three Portuguese shepherd children reported having
visions of the Virgin Mary.

Gallery

Crime, Law and Justice

Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday blamed the
church's own sins for the clerical abuse scandal - not a campaign
mounted by outsiders - and called for profound purification to end
what he called the "greatest persecution" the church has endured.


Pope blames church's own sins for abuse scandal

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