Victims of sex abuse applaud Pope Benedict statement

In one of his most thorough admissions to date of the Roman Catholic Church's failure to stop pedophile priests, Pope Benedict XVI yesterday acknowledged the church did not act quickly or decisively enough against priests who molested children.

Asked by reporters while en route from Rome to the United Kingdom for a four-day visit about polls suggesting many Catholics had lost trust in the church because of the sex-abuse scandals, Benedict said he was shocked and saddened about the scope of the abuse, in part because priests take vows to be Christ's voice upon ordination.

"It's difficult to understand how a man who has said this could then fall into this perversion. It's a great sadness," Benedict said in Italian. "It's also sad that the authority of the church wasn't sufficiently vigilant, and not sufficiently quick or decisive to take necessary measures" to stop it.

Previously, Benedict has admitted the scandal was born of "sins within the church," but he had never acknowledged in such detail the church's failures to act.

"In the past he has expressed outrage, sorrow and pain that the abuse happened. This is one of his strongest statements that it was also a management failure . . . of the hierarchy and the bishops," the Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University told Newsday.

Richard Tollner, who said he was abused by a priest in the Diocese of Rockville Centre in the mid-1970s, praised Benedict's comments, but said he wanted to see more concrete actions.

"I thank him very much for admitting they were remiss in their responsibility. We'd like to know what actions they are going to take to undo the damage they allowed to be perpetrated," he said.

The pope also said victims were now the church's top priority as it tries to help them heal spiritually and psychologically.

"How can we repair, what can we do, to help these people overcome this trauma?" Benedict said.

Huntington Station resident Tim Walsh, who said he was abused by a priest on Long Island decades ago, said now that the pope has acknowledged the abuse, it's time for him to take concrete action. "The scandal is still occurring. The cover-up is alive and well," Walsh said.

Monday, Tollner and Walsh tried to deliver 20,000 pennies to the Diocese of Rockville Centre headquarters as a gesture, as they called for the diocese to create a trust fund to help victims.

The diocese rejected the pennies, calling it a publicity stunt and saying the diocese is already helping victims.

The pennies represented what victims groups say are at least an estimated 20,000 victims of church sex abuse. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says it has logged at least 15,000 sex-abuse complaints since 1950, though not all have been vetted and determined to be credible. With AP