Pope on pain child abuse leaves behind

(ANSA) - Rome, December 29 - The pope at the weekend said the aftermath of child abuse is enough to make one "cry out loud", source said Monday.
    "The traces that child abuse leaves behind in its victims are enough to make one cry out loud," Francis wrote to fashion designer Roberto Piazza, a fellow Argentine who is engaged in the fight against pedophilia.
    The pope added that "preventing child sexual abuse" is the main objective of his special child protection commission. Francis has shown he is serious about tackling the problem of sex abuse of minors by members of the clergy since taking the helm of the Catholic Church, whose image has been tarred by a series of scandals in various parts of the world.
    The Argentine pontiff has defrocked several senior priests and in September he had a former archbishop, Pole Jozef Wesolowski, arrested in the Vatican on charges of allegedly abusing children.
    The arrest was the first inside the Vatican for alleged pedophilia.
    Child sex-abuse cases, many of which emerged during the papacy of Francis' predecessor Benedict XVI, have cost Catholic dioceses and religious orders around the world billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements.
    Francis has apologised for the abuse several times.
    He also stiffened the punishments in the Holy See's law on pedophilia.