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	Pope 'Deeply Ashamed' of Church Sex Scandal Vowing to Work to Keep Pedophiles out of the Clergy, Benedict Breaks with His Predecessor and Strongly Condemns Priestly Child Abuse By Michael Valpy Globe and Mail (Canada) April 16, 2008 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080416.POPE16/TPStory/TPInternational/America/ Pope Benedict XVI deftly confronted the U.S. Roman Catholic sex scandal and its 5,000 victims before his plane arrived in the United States yesterday, using words more powerful than any his predecessor ever uttered to condemn priestly child abuse. In a transatlantic meeting with reporters aboard his chartered Alitalia aircraft, the Pope described his personal difficulty in understanding how clergy could have so betrayed their callings, and he declared it far better for his priest-short church to live with empty pulpits than to again risk letting sexual abusers into its seminaries. "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 in English, in response to a written question submitted to him in advance of his meeting with journalists. "We are deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible that this cannot happen in the future." U.S. President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, went to Andrews Air Force Base just outside Washington to greet the Pope yesterday afternoon, the first time the U.S. President had gone to an airport to meet a visiting head of state. The Pope is the secular leader of the Vatican City State. The United States, one of the world's most populous Catholic countries, is in the midst of a presidential election campaign and both the Republican and Democratic parties and their presidential contenders have been assiduously courting the Catholic vote. Benedict's six-day visit to the United States includes an official welcome today, his 81st birthday, at the White House, a mass celebrated at Washington Nationals baseball stadium tomorrow, an address to the United Nations in New York on Friday and a visit to Sept. 11, 2001's ground zero on Sunday, followed by a mass at Yankee Stadium. He will also meet with Catholic educators in Washington to present his views of what Catholic schools and universities should offer their students and preside over an ecumenical assembly with other religious leaders. Michael Higgins, president of St. Thomas University in Fredericton and one of the world's foremost authorities on the contemporary Catholic Church, said the Pope's politically astute, forthright statement on his aircraft underscored how differently Benedict and his predecessor John Paul II viewed sex scandal and the priesthood in general. "Benedict has a less romanticized, more grounded view of the priesthood than John Paul," Dr. Higgins said. "And I don't think John Paul ever grasped the enormity of what took place in the American church. Benedict is much more pragmatic." He suggested that the Pope's statement, instantly transmitted to U.S. radio and television stations, likely had lanced criticism against him for not including Boston, the epicentre of the sex scandal, on his itinerary, an omission that Dr. Higgins suggested was outside the Pope's control. Boston's once-powerful archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, was forced from office in 2002 because of his protection of abusive priests but later appointed by John Paul II to several authoritative church positions in Rome, an act that still rankles many U.S. Catholics. Dr. Higgins drew a further comparison of the two popes in their handling of Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ and its 70,000-member companion lay organization, Regnum Christi. Despite sexual abuse allegations against Father Maciel dating back three decades, he remained a close friend of John Paul II. However, in 2006, a year after Benedict XVI was elected to the papacy, Father Maciel was barred from performing priestly duties in public. He died three months ago. Dr. Higgins said the Pope's statement would send a message to seminary rectors in North America not to loosen admission standards even though some have been privately complaining about the quality of candidates applying for entry. Abuse in the church Sex abuse scandals in the United States have hung over the Roman Catholic church for nearly a decade. 1984 Abuse scandals in Louisiana begin to attract attention of leading freelance journalist Jason Berry. His 1992 book Lead Us Not into Temptation contends 400 priests and brothers were involved in abuses during the previous eight years in North America. January, 2002 The Boston Globe reports that 130 people were abused by former priest John Geoghan during three decades where he was reassigned rather than removed from contact with young boys. December, 2002 Boston's Cardinal Bernard Law, the most senior Roman Catholic official in the United States, resigns over his handling of clergy sexual abuse. June, 2002 The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops directs each diocese to promptly investigate all allegations of sexual abuse. September, 2003 The Boston Archdiocese agrees to pay up to $85-million to settle lawsuits filed by hundreds of people who say they were sexually abused by clergy. February, 2004 The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops releases a report on alleged sexual abuse of children by priests in the United States over 52 years beginning in 1950. It finds that 10,667 people accused priests of child sexual abuse from 1950 through 2002, and more than 17 per cent of accusers had siblings who were also allegedly abused. February, 2006 Roman Catholic diocese of Covington, which covers a large area of Kentucky, settles abuse claims for $85-million. July, 2007 The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees to pay $660-million to 500 victims of sexual abuse dating as far back as the 1940s in the largest compensation deal of its kind.
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