Sex crisis cost church US$3b

Pope Benedict XVI, long celebrated for speaking out against abuse, faces allegations that he helped to protect predator priests as archbishop of Munich and later as the Vatican's chief morals enforcer. -- PHOTO: AFP

CHICAGO - THE pedophile priest crisis has cost the US Roman Catholic church nearly US$3 billion (S$4.2 billion), but only a fraction of the perpetrators faced prison and little has been done to punish those who covered up the crimes.

After years of painful revelations, massive payouts, soul searching and reforms, the child sex abuse scandal has spread across the globe and in recent weeks has struck the church at its very core.

Pope Benedict XVI, long celebrated for speaking out against abuse, faces allegations that he helped to protect predator priests as archbishop of Munich and later as the Vatican's chief morals enforcer.

'We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history,' the US-based National Catholic Reporter wrote in an editorial demanding 'direct answers' from the Holy Father.

The independent newspaper decried the 'mismanagement' of the crisis and insisted that 'the strategies employed so far - taking the legal path, obscuring the truth, and doing everything possible to protect perpetrators as well as the church's reputation and treasury - have failed miserably.'

A CBS News poll released on Friday showed that more than two thirds of Americans think the pope has done a bad job in handling the crisis. His favourability rating among US Catholics has fallen to 27 per cent from 40 per cent in 2006. The allegations currently sweeping across Europe bear a stark similarity to those that first surfaced in the United States in the mid 1980s. -- AFP