Pope urges action on sexual abuse

The Pope said trust had to be rebuilt

The Catholic Church must take all necessary steps to prevent furtheroccurrences of child sex abuse by clergy, Pope Benedict has said.

To do this, the church had to find out what had happened in the past, he said.

The Pope made the comments to a group of visitingbishops from Ireland, where abuse scandals dating back decades havedamaged the reputation of the church.

Trust in the clergy had been damaged, Pope Benedict said, and rebuilding confidence was an urgent task.

In March, a report from the Archdiocese of Dublin saidthat more than 100 Catholic priests in Dublin were suspected of havingabused children in the last 66 years.

The wounds caused by such acts run deep, and it is an urgent task to rebuild confidence and trust where these have been damaged Pope Benedict

But there have been other scandals in various parts of the world.

In the US, a Boston-based scandal in 2002 led to theprosecutions of a number of priests, large payouts to dozens of victimsand allegations of a cover-up by senior clergy.

'Bring healing'

Pope Benedict said that abuse scandals had created deep wounds in the church.

"It is important to establish the truth of what happenedin the past, to take whatever steps are necessary to prevent it fromoccurring again," he said, according to a copy of the speech releasedby the Vatican.

"Above all, (it is important) to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes."

But Pope Benedict said the abuse scandals should not overshadow the work of Ireland's priests.

"The fine work and selfless dedication of the greatmajority of priests and religious in Ireland should not be obscured bythe transgressions of some of their brethren," he said.

Pope Benedict spoke in some of the strongest language hehas used so far of his personal anguish and horror at what happened inIreland, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Rome.

But some have questioned whether the Pope's comments aretoo little too late, and whether an apology should be made directly tothe victims themselves.

While welcoming the Pope's expression of regret, ColmO'Gorman, the founder of a victims' group in Northern Ireland, saidmore action was required by the Vatican to introduce a worldwide systemof child protection measures that would be underpinned in church law,our correspondent adds.