Pope asks forgiveness for corrupt clergy

(ANSA) - Vatican City, June 17 - Pope Francis on Tuesday apologised for corruption by Catholic clergymen, admitting that the problem affected prelates in some cases. "When we read in the newspapers that this person is corrupt, that this other person is corrupt, that someone has done this act of corruption and that bribes go here and there and many things by some prelates, as Christians it is our duty to ask forgiveness for them and ask the Lord to give them the grace to repent, so they don't die with a corrupt heart," he said.
    The Vatican administration and its bank have been hit by several scandals in recent years. Among the cases to hit the headlines was the 2013 arrest of prelate Monsignor Nunzio Scarano.
    Scarano, the former head of analytic accounts at the Holy See's asset-management agency APSA, is suspected involvement in the laundering money through accounts at the Vatican Bank and of trying to illegally smuggle 20 million euros into Italy for rich friends. The pope was speaking Tuesday in his morning Mass at the Santa Marta guest house where he lives in the Vatican, having spurned the space and comfort of the papal apartments.
    He said that the corrupt kill and steal while "wearing white gloves, from far away, without getting their hands dirty".
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