Saturday, February 7, 2004

John Paul Speaks Out

Pope addresses crisis to those in Vatican dealing with it...



From CBS news:



Pope John Paul II called Friday for fairness in judging priests accused of sex abuse but said the "predominant" need was to protect the young. That, he said, would be assured if seminaries and church authorities did a better job instructing priests to be celibate.



The pope made the comments in a speech to members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's orthodoxy watchdog which also judges cases of priests accused of sexual misconduct.



John Paul told the prelates they had seen a "noteworthy increase" in their caseload ever since the abuse crisis erupted in the United States in January 2002, with dozens of reports of abusive priests who had been moved from parish to parish rather than punished.



Since then, more than 325 of the United States' 46,000 clergy have either resigned or been barred from church work.



But John Paul said current church law — if fairly applied — "tends to guarantee the exercise of the right of defense of the accused as well as the needs of the common good."



Once there is evidence of a crime, church authorities must consider "the just principle of proportionality between guilt and punishment, as well as the predominant need to protect the people of God," he said.

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