Vatican City, Mar 9, 2010 / 09:40 am
The Vatican's spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi commented today on the decades-old sex abuses cases in several European countries that recently came to light and lauded the Church for its “transparency” and “timely and decisive action” in dealing with them. Fr. Lombardi also stressed that focusing just on the problem of sex abuse in the Church gives a “false perspective” on an issue that affects society at large.
The Vatican spokesman opened his remarks by first noting the efforts of Pope Benedict and the Church to address the problems within the Church in Ireland. However, Fr. Lombardi explained that his comments are aimed more on the sex abuse cases surfacing in Germany, Austria and Holland.
“The main ecclesiastical institutions concerned - the German Jesuit Province (the first to be involved, through the case of the Canisius-Kolleg in Berlin), the German Episcopal Conference, the Austrian Episcopal Conference and the Netherlands Episcopal Conference - have faced the emergence of problem with timely and decisive action,” Fr. Federico stated on Tuesday.
“They have demonstrated their desire for transparency and, in a certain sense, accelerated the emergence of the problem by inviting victims to speak out, even when the cases involved date from many years ago. By doing so they have approached the matter 'on the right foot', because the correct starting point is recognition of what happened and concern for the victims and the consequences of the acts committed against them.”