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	Vatican In Damage Control On Sex Abuse By Greg Burke Fox News March 13, 2010 http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/03/13/vatican-in-damage-control-on-sex-abuse/?test=latestnews EUROPE -- After giving some serious lessons over the last few years on how not to handle a crisis, the Vatican has gone into full-scale damage control on the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church in Germany. On Saturday, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi spoke of "a certain aggressive persistence" on the parts of some people in Germany to try to link Pope Benedict to the scandal – attempts Lombardi said are not working. A German newspaper reported that a priest who had been suspected of abusing children had been transferred into the Archdiocese of Munich when Joseph Ratzinger – the future pope – was archbishop there. A lower level church official in Munich took full responsibility for the move. Also on Saturday, the Vatican official in charge of investigating and prosecuting abuse cases, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, gave a rare interview, defending the work of Pope Benedict on the question of clerical abuse. To accuse the Pope of any cover-up on clerical abuse cases is "false and calumnious," Scicluna told the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire. While the Pope has not spoken publicly about the turmoil in Germany, a bishop who briefed him about it on Friday said he found the Pope to be deeply disturbed about the reports from his homeland. Stories of physical and sexual abuse at Catholic institutions in Germany are just the latest scandal to rock the Church in Europe. Pope Benedict had already been briefed on the problem in Ireland, and is expected to address the issue in a letter to the Irish faithful before Easter. When the story in Ireland became known to its full extent late last year, the Vatican said the Pope shared the "outrage, betrayal and shame" of Irish Catholics.
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