At a ceremony to honor two veteran correspondents, Pope Francis thanked journalists for helping uncover the sexual abuse scandals of the Roman Catholic Church.
Francis said it was vital for reporters to get out of their newsrooms and discover what was happening in the outside world to counter misinformation often found online.
“(I) thank you for what you tell us about what is wrong in the Church, for helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the abuse victims.”
Pope Francis
The sexual abuse scandals of the Roman Catholic Church first hit headlines in 2002, when U.S. daily The Boston Globe wrote a series of articles exposing a pattern of abuse of minors by clerics and a widespread culture of concealment within the Church.
Since then, investigations revealed more and more examples of sexual abuse in the Church in different countries, most recently France where a major investigation found that clerics had abused more than 200000 children over the past 70 years.
Although the church has faced heavy criticism and record numbers of church departures, for example in Germany, critics still accused the Church of responding too slowly to the scandals. Therefore, Pope Francis’s public statement is an important signal for Christians.
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