Pope The Greatest Threat Comes from Sin Within the Church, Igor I Solar, Digital Journal, May 11, 2010

Pope: ‘the Greatest Threat Comes from Sin Within the Church’

By Igor I. Solar
Digital Journal
May 11, 2010

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/291854

Pope Benedict XVI during visit to Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Photo by Fabio Pozzebom/Agencia Brasil

Lisboa - Pope Benedict XVI said today that "forgiveness does not replace justice" in response to reporters about how the Church should react to the scandal over sexual abuses against minors committed by priests.

In his answer to a question from reporters on the scandal about sexual abuses in the Catholic Church the pontiff told reporters on the plane taking him to Portugal: "Today we see in a terrible way that the greatest threat to the Church does not come from its external enemies but it comes from sin within the Church,"

Benedict XVI mentioned the need for "repentance, prayer, acceptance, but also the need for justice, because forgiveness is not a substitute for justice." The Pope added that "the forces of good are present and that, ultimately, are stronger than evil." "The goodness of God is the last word of history," he concluded.

The Pope, who since several months ago is facing a series of complaints about decades of cover-ups of pedophile priests within the Catholic Church, is visiting Portugal as a pilgrimage to the shrine of Fatima. Hundreds of thousands of visitors travel to Fatima during May for celebrations of the anniversary of the apparitions in 1917.