The sexual-abuse crisis which has engulfed the Catholic Church is, above all, an occasion of profound regret at the damage done to the victims. But it is also an occasion of anger at the way the Church has treated those victims. The pain caused by clerics has been exacerbated by the misgovernance of bishops. So deep is the hurt that the victims feel, that it is understandable that attention has turned to the role of the Pope himself in the crisis. Calls for Pope Benedict’s resignation have come from victims and groups representing them, for only such a cathartic action would be proportionate to the anger and hurt they feel. Nevertheless, Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster was right to say on television last weekend that there were “no strong reasons” for Pope Benedict to resign.

Contrary to the impression given by recent, increasingly aggressive coverage by the media, Pope Benedict’s actions have reflected concern for the victims and a deep desire to clean up the Catholic Church. The Pope’s letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland was unsparing in his condemnation of offenders and of bishops who failed in their leadership and made grave errors of judgement.

Also to his credit, as Archbishop Nichols also said, are tough measures he instituted as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to tighten up the Church’s procedures for dealing with such cases. The most important of these was an instruction to all bishops issued in 2001 that they must from then on inform the CDF of every case, and await orders on how to handle it. The orders that subsequently came down from the CDF were to start proceedings under canon law with a view to suspension or dismissal of the priest concerned, in some cases almost instantaneously.

Questions have been asked, however, about the time when Joseph Ratzinger was Archbishop of Munich and a priest accused of paedophilia was transferred to a house in the archdiocese ...

Pope Benedict’s dramatic apology to the Catholics of Ireland was nothing less than a stinging rebuke of the Irish bishops for their incompetence, and the neglect of their duty to stop the abuse of children by priests. “Errors of judgement” and “failures of leadership” had “seriously undermined your credibility and effectiveness”, he told them. By the end of his pastoral letter, ...

The High Court’s ruling in favour of the charity Catholic Care on Wednesday may have implications far beyond the Dioceses of Leeds, Middlesbrough and Hallam to which it directly applies, and far beyond the issue of whether Catholic Care is obliged by law to consider gay couples as suitable adopters of children. If the obligation stands, the charity would either have to withdraw from adoption work or sever its ...

This is proving a long, cold winter for the Catholic Church in relation to the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Hard on the heels of the devastating Murphy report into sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Dublin, similar cases are now coming to light elsewhere in Europe, especially in Germany. The possibility of a similar scandal in Spain is now being openly talked about there too, and child abuse allegations are ...

Although the main political parties are close in many areas of policy, the forthcoming general election is clearly regarded by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales as a watershed, and therefore as a suitable moment for some national stocktaking. Their pre-election statement “Choosing the Common Good”, published this week, paints a discouraging picture of the current state of society. It goes on to ...