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	Pope Set to Send Letter to Irish Catholics on Abuse Cases By Jeffrey Donovan Business Week March 17, 2010 http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-17/pope-set-to-send-letter-to-irish-catholics-on-abuse-cases.html March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Pope Benedict XVI said he will soon send a letter to the Irish faithful aimed at bringing about healing after child sexual-abuse scandals rocked the country’s Catholic Church. Benedict, addressing his weekly general audience at the Vatican today, said he will sign the letter on March 19 and send it “soon after,” according to the Holy See’s Web site. The German-born pontiff asked the faithful to read the letter “with an open heart and in a spirit of faith,” saying he hopes it helps “in the process of repentance, healing and renewal.” The pope has struggled to contain the damage to the church’s reputation from European sex-abuse scandals that began in Ireland and have spread to Germany, the Netherlands and Austria. He was accused by victims’ rights groups of being slow to respond to Irish investigations last year that documented “endemic” abuse of children by priests since the 1930s. Benedict, during his tenure as archbishop of Munich, played a role in a decision to allow a priest accused of molestation to undergo therapy, the German Catholic Church said on March 12. The priest was later reassigned by another church official and committed more abuse, the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising said in a statement on its Web site. A spokesman for the Vatican, Federico Lombardi, said the pope was “extraneous” to the events in Munich and referred to the statement issued by the archdiocese. The leader of more than a billion Catholics, Benedict has made some efforts to deal with abuse scandals since becoming pope in April 2005. He became the first pontiff to apologize to victims of abuse in 2008 on a visit to the U.S. and Australia. --Editors: Andrew Davis, Jennifer Freedman To contact the reporter on this story: Jeffrey Donovan in Rome at jdonovan26@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Fraher at jfraher@bloomberg.net
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