Pope gets support from Church amid abuse apologies

A conservative religious order that enjoyed the favour of Pope John Paul II has apologised to victims of sexual abuse by its founder.

French bishops said in a letter to the Pope that they were ashamed of priests who committed “abominable acts” by sexually abusing children.

The Vatican has been on the defensive in recent days as criticism over the handling of some of the abuse probes in the United States and in the Pope’s native Germany have threatened to engulf the papacy.

The Pope, in his previous role as a Vatican-based Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, directed the office that deals with sex allegations. Earlier, as Munich archbishop he was the top authority in that diocese.

The letter to him from French bishops, and a website statement by the religious order the Legionaries of Christ, were the latest expressions of shame and regret from local churches or religious orders.

Both contained expressions of solidarity with the Pope for his handling of abuse cases.

Abuse victims from the United States to Europe have been demanding that he take responsibility for what he did or did not do, both in his tenure in Germany and as the director of a Vatican policy that centralised the cases in Rome under a cloak of confidentiality.

French bishops said in their letter that they are ashamed of priests who molested and raped children. The bishops said these “abominable acts” had “disfigured the Church, wounded Christian communities and cast suspicion on all the members of the clergy”.

But they also expressed solidarity with the Pope, saying the sexual abuse scandals were “being used in a campaign to attack you personally”.

Meanwhile an international religious order which long had been held out as a model of staunch faith by the pontiff’s late predecessor, John Paul II thanked him for his role in investigating abuse allegation.

Leaders of the Legionaries of Christ said that at first they could not believe the accusations against the late Mexican prelate Marcial Maciel, including molestation of seminarians and that he had a long relationship with a woman and fathered a daughter with her.

But they said it was thanks to an investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, under the direction of the Pope when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger that they were convinced the allegations were true.

“Yet again we express our pain and regret to each and every one of the persons who were harmed by the actions of our founder,” the Legionaries’ leadership said.

“We want to ask forgiveness from all those people who accused him in the past and who weren’t given credence or who weren’t listened to because in that moment we couldn’t conceive of this behaviour," the Legionaries said.

They expressed “gratitude” to the Pope for having sent five bishops to investigate the order around the world. The inspection is complete, and the order said it was “obediently” awaiting his instructions.

But while churchmen rallied to the Pope's side, the Holy See itself was again on the defence.

Spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi reiterated the Vatican’s insistence that the Pope did not know about a Munich archdiocese decision to return a priest in therapy for peadophilia to pastoral work.

A report in today’s New York Times said the Pope was copied in on a memo about the decision.

Rev. Lombardi circulated a statement issued by the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising stating that the decision to return the priest to pastoral work was made by the vicar general of that time, Rev. Gerhard Gruber.

Two weeks ago Gruber said that he was in sole charge of staffing decisions during Cardinal Ratzinger’s tenure as archbishop, and that he would not have been aware of his decision because his case load was too big.

Victims worldwide have been demanding top diocesan bishops and Vatican officials take responsibility for frequent cover-ups of sexual abuse by clergy or the shuffling of molester priests from parish to parish.