Pope Benedict wrong to describe criticism of child abuse in the Catholic Church as "petty gossip"

I have blogged about paedophiles and child abuse within the Catholic Church before, you can read it here.

So, regular readers of my little blog will be happy (or not) to see me say a small well done to the Catholic Church for finally highlighting publicly some of the work they are doing to eradicate this despicable behaviour by some of it's own clergy.

Of course it is not just the actual deed of abuse that is wrong, it is also the cover up by various people in senior positions within the Catholic Church that is as wrong.

Pope Benedict however needs to learn and understand the pure anger felt by those who have been abused, not just by those within his Church but by anyone and this weekend the Pope spoke and said not to be intimidated by critics, in a veiled reference to recent (and long term) anger at himself and the Catholic Church over sex abuse scandals.

At a mass in Rome's St Peter's Square, he said his faith would help give him the courage to deflect "petty gossip".

Pope Benedict has recently been accused of failing to act over the case of an American priest, Father Lawrence Murphy, who it is alleged to have abused around 200 deaf boys in Milwaukee.

The Pope told the tens of thousands of people gathered to hear him this weekend that God helped lead "towards the courage of not allowing oneself to be intimidated by the petty gossip of dominant opinion".

He also went onto say man sometimes fell to the "lowest, vulgar levels" and sunk "into the swamp of sin and dishonesty".

In my opinion, yes, I do have personal opinions the Pope has chosen his words very carefully, but cowardly.

He seems happy to deflect the criticism of child abuse within the Catholic Church as petty gossip but not to criticise those within the Church who have become, or joined as paedophiles, why is that?

The Pope has apologised to victims of abuse before and recently said sorry to them in a pastoral letter to Irish Catholics.

He said he acknowledged the sense of betrayal in the Church felt by victims and their families.

Those of dominant opinion are absolutely sickened by the continuos stream of stories of child abuse and paedophole priests within the Church (not just the Catholic Church, although mainly) that come out month after month, year after year.  Perhaps Pope Benedict should think on that before criticising the masses.

The Vatican press team do not like the continued criticism and put out rebuttal after rebuttal trying to make out the Catholic Church is holier than though.

When will the Catholic Church stop chasing headlines and just put a stop to this?  Paedophiles and child abuse in any organisation is wrong, within the Church it is actually worse as the Priests are there in a position of trust and they abuse that trust when they abuse a child!