Tuesday, Pope Benedict said he is "deeply ashamed" of the scandal and assured Catholics that seminaries will not tolerate pedophiles. "It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States, for the Church in general and for me personally that this could happen," Benedict told reporters. "If I read the stories of these victims, it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing, to give love of God to these children."

In his response, the Pontiff has utterly mis-stated the nature of the clerical pedophilia scandal. The scandal is not the presence of pedophiles in the church, but the institutionalization of child-rape by the knowing protection and even promotion (by non-pedophiles) of those who are guilty of it. The most grievous offender in this respect is Cardinal Bernard Law, currently an honored figure at the Vatican. This expression of contempt for the victims makes the Pope himself a direct accomplice in the very atrocity that he affects to denounce.