Pope under Fire for Not Addressing Child Abuse Scandal in Easter Speech, Hurriyet Daily News, April 4, 2010

Pope under Fire for Not Addressing Child Abuse Scandal in Easter Speech

Hurriyet Daily News
April 4, 2010

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=pope-under-fire-for-not-addressing-child-abuse-scandal-in-easter-speech-2010-04-04

VATICAN CITY -- VATICAN CITY - From wire dispatches

Pope Benedict XVI conveys a message of forgiveness but makes no mention of the recently emerged child abuse scandals by clergy. While senior cardinals staunchly defend the pope, some British lawyers question whether the Vatican's implicit statehood status should shield the pope from prosecution

Pope Benedict XVI maintained his silence Sunday on mounting sex abuse cover-up accusations during his Easter message as top Vatican prelates rallied around him.

A photo provided by the Osservatore Romano shows Pope Benedict XVI delivering the traditional Urbi et Orbi Easter message from the central loggia of St. Peter's Basilica on Sunday at the Vatican.

Easter Mass in a rain-drenched St. Peter's Square kicked off with an unusual greeting from the dean of the College of Cardinals, who told the pontiff: "The people of God are with you and do not allow themselves to be impressed by the idle chatter of the moment."

Cardinal Angelo Sodano was reprising the same phrase the pope used a week ago when he urged Christians "not be intimidated by the idle chatter of prevailing opinions." Dressed in gold robes and shielded from a cool drizzle by a canopy, Benedict looked weary as he listened to Sodano's speech at the start of Mass in the cobblestone square bedecked with daffodils, tulips and azaleas.

In Paris, the archbishop of the city and head of the Catholic Church in France, Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, said there was a "smear campaign aimed at the pope".

It was Benedict, then known as Cardinal Ratzinger, who "as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, encouraged bishops to take action against paedophilia by systematically informing Rome of such cases," he told Le Parisien newspaper.

However, the top bishops in both Belgium and Germany issued forthright condemnations of the Church's role in covering up for predator priests.

Belgium's Andre Joseph Leonard, archbishop of Mechelen-Brussel, said in his Easter homily that the Church had mismanaged the crisis "with a guilty silence".

Germany's top archbishop, Robert Zollitsch, for his part, said: "Today particularly we must set out together and examine inconceivable events, awful crimes, the Church's dark aspects as well as our shadowy sides."

In Britain and Ireland, Catholic and Anglican leaders used their Easter Sunday sermons to try to heal the wounds from a rift between the churches over the Irish clerical child abuse scandal.

Churchmen on both sides of the Irish Sea spoke of the turmoil in the Irish Catholic Church caused by paedophile priests and attempts to cover up their behavior. But they also reflected on comments by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the leader of the world's Anglicans, who said the Catholic Church was "losing all credibility" in Ireland over the scandal.

Moral conversion

The scandals have cast a pall over Easter, the most joyous day in the Christian calendar, commemorating the day when Jesus Christ is believed to have been resurrected.

In his "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message, the pope, wearing a gold miter and white and gold vestments, said humankind needed "a spiritual and moral conversion... to emerge from a profound crisis, one which requires deep change, beginning with consciences."

The crisis over predator priests took a new twist on Friday when the pope's personal preacher evoked a parallel between attacks on the pontiff and anti-Semitism.

Jewish groups and those representing victims of abuse by Roman Catholic priests condemned Father Raniero Cantalamessa for quoting the comments, which he said were made in a letter from a Jewish friend, in his Good Friday sermon.

Cantalamessa issued an apology on Sunday, telling the Italian daily Corriere della Sera: "If I inadvertently hurt the feelings of Jews and paedophile victims, I sincerely regret it and I apologies."

Benedict has spoken out several times since the start of his papacy in 2005 on child sex abuse, calling it a "heinous crime" and a "grave sin." But the scandals have been gaining momentum relentlessly, putting the Vatican on the defensive.

Meanwhile, protests were growing against Benedict's planned trip to Britain, where some lawyers question whether the Vatican's implicit statehood status should shield the pope from prosecution over sex crimes by pedophile priests.

More than 10,000 people have signed a petition on Downing Street's web site against the pope's 4-day visit to England and Scotland in September, which will cost U.K. taxpayers an estimated 15 million pounds ($22.5 million).

The campaign has gained momentum as more Catholic sex abuse scandals have swept across Europe.

Although Benedict has not been accused of any crime, senior British lawyers are now examining whether the pope should have immunity as a head of state and whether he could be prosecuted under the principle of universal jurisdiction for an alleged systematic cover-up of sexual abuses by priests.

Universal jurisdiction - a concept in international law - allows judges to issue warrants for nearly any visitor accused of grievous crimes, no matter where they live.

Lawyers are divided over the immunity issue. Some argue that the Vatican isn't a true state, while others note the Vatican has national relations with about 170 countries, including Britain. The Vatican is also the only non-member to have permanent observer status at the U.N.