Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco and Pope Benedict in Paul VI hall at the Vatican 25 April/Osservatore Romano
The Catholic Church is being unfairly singled out for criticism of sexual abuse of children by priests and will not tolerate campaigns to discredit it, the powerful head of Italy’s bishops said on Monday. Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco spoke to Italian bishops as the Vatican tried to stem a scandal gripping the Church that has swept across Europe.
Speaking two days after Pope Benedict apologised to victims of sexual abuse in Ireland, Bagnasco said the Church was “not afraid of the truth, however painful and detestable” but would not accept any “generalised campaigns to discredit it.”
As the scandal has spread in a number of European countries, some other bishops have also lambasted the media. “The cover-up has gone on for centuries, not just in the Church … it’s going on today in families, in communities, in societies. Why are you singling out the Church?” Bishop Christopher Jones of Elphin, Ireland, said last week.
Bishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller of Regensburg, Germany, decried “a campaign against the Church” in the media and accused journalists of biased reporting. “They (the media) are manipulating the people who sit in front of a television or open up a newspaper with their twisted and shortened reports,” he said.
Read the whole story here and tell us what you think. Is the Catholic Church being unfairly singled out? Or should it be held to a higher standard than secular institutions because it preaches the morality some priests have violated?