Abuse Victims Are First Concern

Catholic Sentinel
October 2, 2012

http://www.catholicsentinel.org/Main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=61&ArticleID=19370

German Archbishop Gerhard Muller is pictured at the Vatican in a 2010 file photo. The new prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano that the congregation's discussions with the traditiona list Society of St. Pius X and with the U.S. Leadership Conference of Women Religious would focus on the fact that being Catholic means believing what the church teaches. The interview with him was published in the paper's July 25 edition.

The senior Vatican official with authority for investigating priests accused of sexual abuse said the most important concern is for those who have been the victims of this terrible abuse.

Archbishop Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the congregation also has an obligation to ensure that the process of justice does not “become a lynching.”

He inherited cases, studies and projects the congregation had begun under his predecessor, U.S. Cardinal William Levada, including the congregation-ordered revision of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the largest organization of superiors of women’s orders in the United States.

Muller already knew something about these issues because he had been a member of the congregation for the past five years while serving as archbishop of Regensburg, Germany.