The Vatican on Wednesday strongly defended Pope Benedict XVI’s record in fighting clergy sexual abuse and cautioned against looking for “easy scapegoats and summary judgments," after an independent report faulted his handling of four cases of abuse when he was archbishop of Munich Germany
The Holy See’s editorial director, Andrea Tornielli, provided the Vatican's first substantial response to the report in an editorial that appeared on the Vatican's media portal, Vatican News. In it, Tornielli recalled that Benedict was the first pope to meet with victims of abuse, that he had issued strong norms to punish priests who raped children and had directed the church to pursue a path of humility in seeking forgiveness for the crimes of its clerics.
