Popes ex-diocese suspends sex-abuse priest -2.
Sunday, March 14 2010 @ 06:11 PM GMT
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Tag: germany
Tag: youtube The Vatican has been working hard to defend the German-born Pope Benedict XVI as the scandal spreads.
As the head of the Vatican's doctrinal arm in Rome before he became pope, Ratzinger "initiated intense activities to confront, judge and adequately punish the crimes in the context of ecclesiastical legislation," Vatican spokesman the Federico Lombardi said Saturday.
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"The line he followed was always one of rigor and coherence in dealing with even the most difficult situations," he said.
Also on Saturday, a top Vatican official said Catholic Church officials never prosecuted more than half the roughly 3,000 priests accused of sexual impropriety in the last decade.
There has been "no trial" in 60 percent of cases, mostly "because of the advanced age of the accused," said Msgr. Charles J. Scicluna, head of the Vatican office that investigates crimes the church considers most serious.
The priests in those cases were subject to "administrative and disciplinary provisions" such as instructions not to celebrate Mass or hear confessions, Scicluna told L'Avvenire, the Italian Catholic bishops' newspaper.
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