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.
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