UNITED STATES
Press TV (Iran)
Pope Francis is sidestepping the widespread sexual abuse committed by Christian priests in the US Catholic Church, as he visits the United States for the first time, a writer and activist in Boston says.
The pope’s remarks to US bishops in Washington on Wednesday praising their response to the sex scandal while failing to mention the words sexual abuse is “extremely disappointing for the victims of clergy sex abuse,” said Daniel Patrick Welch.
“The pope is more or less sidestepping what is the biggest issue for American Catholics in the last 50 years; it dwarfs everything else,” Welch told Press TV on Thursday.
“It’s not a scandal of course, it’s a crime, it’s a huge crime and the cover up is also a crime,” he added.
Allegations of sexual abuse by the Christian clergy go back decades, but exploded into a full-blown crisis in 2002 when US media revealed widespread abuse and cover-ups by bishops.
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