Church needs to regain trust by working with law - Vatican

VATICAN CITY, April 10, 2010 (AFP) - The Roman Catholic Church must cooperate with criminal justice authorities on child abuse by priests as “the only way to regain trust,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said Friday.

Speaking on Vatican Radio, Lombardi also stressed that Pope Benedict XVI was prepared to meet again with victims of paedophile priests.

“Apart from the attention we must pay to the victims, we must pursue cooperation with the relevant civil judicial and penal authorities, in line with the legal and other situations in each country,” Lombardi said.

“In the context of attention to victims, the pope has written that he is available for new meetings,” Lombardi said, in reference to a pastoral letter the pope addressed to Irish Catholics last month.

The pope has had high-profile meetings with victims of predator priests in the United States and Australia.Large-scale paedophilia scandals have rocked the Catholic Church in recent months in a number of countries including Ireland, Austria and the pope’s native Germany.The 82-year-old pontiff, formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, has himself faced allegations that when he headed the Vatican’s watchdog for morals and doctrinal issues, and earlier as the archbishop of Munich, he failed to take action against predator priests.

Senior clerics have been accused of protecting guilty clergy by moving them to other parishes — where they sometimes offended again — instead of handing them over to authorities for prosecution.

In the letter to Irish Catholics, the pope expressed “shame and remorse” for the sexual abuse of children by priests and slammed Irish bishops for “serious mistakes” in responding to allegations.

Benedict also said priests and religious workers who are guilty of child abuse “must answer” for their crimes “before properly constituted tribunals.”

On Vatican Radio, Lombardi discussed the process of training men for the priesthood, saying: “Reaching a healthy maturity of personality, particularly in terms of sexuality, has always been a difficult challenge; today it is even more so.”