Pope Francis Vows to ‘Use the Stick Against the Paedophile Priests’

By Sounak Mukhopadhyay
International Business Times
July 14, 2014

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/559057/20140714/pope-francis-vow-use-stick-against-paedophile.htm#.U8O5ofldWSo

The pope's statement appeared on Italian newspaper La Repubblica. He said in the interview that he would follow what Jesus did and "use the stick against the paedophile priests." Paedophilia exists even among bishops and cardinals, he said. The pope said that the corruption of a child was the most terrible one. He also said that most of the child-victims came from the church family or from the community of old friends.

Father Federico Lombardi, one of the spokesmen from the Vatican, on the other hand, said that it was not exactly what the pope had said. The pope was interviewed by the editor of the newspaper, Eugenio Scalfari, on Thursday, July 10. It was presented more like a tête-à-tête rather than an official interview. Scalfari apparently does not have the habit of recording his interviews in digital recorders. On the other hand, Father Lombardi claimed that the pontiff had not checked how accurately the interview was presented before it got published. He also denied that Pope Francis had said that there were paedophile cardinals.

The 77-year-old head of the Vatican earlier apologised to those have suffered sexual abuse by priests. Several victims and their families are apparently furious that the Vatican has failed to punish the offenders.

An ex-archbishop in Canada was sentenced to 8-month imprisonment on July 9 for molesting an altar boy. Seraphim Kenneth Storheim, an Orthodox priest during those days, was charged for committing the offence in 1985.