Pope Says Church in Times of Difficulty, Francoise Kadri, AFP, April 5, 2010

Pope Says Church in "Times of Difficulty"

By Francoise Kadri
AFP
April 5, 2010

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5h0qrHc1VvaIgP4TqrzrQj6UDisRA

Pope Benedict XVI blesses the pilgrims gathered for his Regina Coeli prayer

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy — Pope Benedict XVI acknowledged Monday the Roman Catholic Church is in "times of difficulty" but avoided direct comment on sex abuse, as the Vatican faced fresh criticism over the scandal.

After a series of paedophile revelations which cast a pall over the holiest week in the Christian calendar, the embattled pontiff spoke of priests' special responsibility to society in an Easter Monday prayer.

Benedict told hundreds of followers at Castel Gandolfo near Rome that "the loving presence (of Christ) accompanies the Church on its path and supports it in times of difficulty".

"Priests, ministers of Christ, have a special responsibility", said the 82-year-old pope, appearing calm and smiling, adding that they should be "messengers of victory over evil and death".

Many of the assembled worshippers waved banners of support.

But Benedict again kept mum on the abuse scandal, which has reached the pope himself with claims that he helped shield predator priests when head of the Vatican's moral watchdog and as archbishop of Munich.

In a new twist, a report in Germany's Die Zeit magazine said that current Vatican number two Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and not the pope, bore the main responsibility for inaction in the scandal of a US priest.

Benedict has faced criticism over claims that, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he failed to take action despite being alerted twice by the archbishop of Wisconsin to claims that Father Lawrence Murphy had abused 200 deaf children.

Large-scale paedophile scandals have rocked the churches of Ireland, Austria, Switerzland, the United States and the pope's native Germany in recent days.

The Vatican has adopted a strategy of blaming the media for playing up the paedophile revelations, accusing them of trying to smear Benedict.

Top prelates closed ranks around the pope on Easter Sunday, with the dean of the Vatican's College of Cardinals, Angelo Sodano, saying in an unusual gesture that "the people of God are with you" and would ignore "idle chatter".

On Friday the pope's personal preacher, Father Raniero Cantalamessa, evoked a parallel between attacks on the pope and anti-Semitism. He later apologised after condemnation by Jewish groups and abuse victims.

Experts said however that the Vatican's approach was a sign of weakness, and added that the Church needed to take responsibility for the scandal.

The pope and the Church must "leave their bunker and their siege mentality" to "resolve the questions posed by this grave crisis", Giancarlo Zizola, a Vatican commentator at Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, told AFP.

Another Vatican expert, Bruno Bartoloni, said Cantalamessa's comments about anti-semitism on Good Friday "gave the impression of a Vatican that was losing the plot a bit".

Criticism of the Vatican's handling of the scandals continued, with the Spanish parliament's socialist president Jose Bono accusing it of a "clumsy" response.

"The Church hierarchy is behaving clumsily by not stating clearly that a few rotten apples don't spoil the whole barrel," said Bono, himself a Catholic.

A retired French bishop meanwhile said it was a mistake to take a convicted Canadian paedophile priest into his diocese in the 1980s but "back then, that's how the church operated."

"We were being helpful. We were asked to take in an undesirable priest and we agreed," Jacques Gaillot, the former bishop of Evreux, west of Paris, said in an interview with Le Parisien newspaper.

Closer to home, vandals at the weekend scrawled graffiti including "Paedophiles in prison" and "Church = Mafia = State" on the 18th century Church of Sant'Eutizio, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Rome.