the times article drew on documents obtained from lawyers suing the church that showed that vatican officials had at first ordered a secret canonical trial , then asked the archdiocese to suspend it after the priest
the pope and the church officials who had sexually abused thousands of children .
in a rare interview and a 2,400 - word statement posted wednesday on the vatican web site , the official , cardinal william j. levada , an american who heads the congregation for the doctrine of the faith , praised pope benedict for vigorously investigating and prosecuting sexual abuse cases .
on march 24th , the new york times characterized “ pope benedict xvi ’s latest apology for the emerging global scandal of child abuse by predatory priests , ” as inadequate , noting that benedict “ made no mention of the need to discipline diocesan leaders most responsible for shielding hundreds of priests from criminal penalties by moving them from parish to parish to continue their crimes .
” cardinal levada singled out several times reporters and columnists for criticism , focusing particularly on an article describing failed efforts by wisconsin church officials to persuade the vatican to defrock a priest who had abused as many as 200 deaf boys from 1950 to 1974 .
most of the molesters were also over the age 30 but the catholic league does not rename the “ pedophilia crisis ” an “ older man crisis ” or an “ white older man ” crisis or anything of the sort .
he said the article wrongly “ attributed the failure to accomplish this dismissal to pope benedict , instead of diocesan decisions at the time .
what the catholic league is trying to do is imply that there is a connection between homosexuality and molestation , just like segregationists once accused african americans of raping white women , and jews were accused of murdering christian babies .
he said the times ’s coverage had been “ deficient by any reasonable standards of fairness .