Pope: ‘The world that speaks to us of our sins’

(CNS News) VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI apparently gave a remarkable homily at Mass today with members of the Pontifical Biblical Commission, speaking about the clerical sex abuse crisis as an opportunity for the church to do real penance. (UPDATE: Full story.)

The pope first referred to a ”subtle or not so subtle aggression against the church” as a form of modern conformism ”under which it becomes obligatory to think as everyone thinks, to act as everyone acts.” Such conformism can become a dictatorship, he said.

Then he said the “attacks” against the church present an opportunity for purification and transformation through penance.

I must say that we Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word ‘penance,’ which seemed too harsh to us. Now, under the attacks of the world that speaks to us of our sins, we see that being able to do penance is a grace and we see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life, to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed. The pain of penance, that is to say of purification and of transformation, this pain is grace, because it is renewal, and it is the work of Divine Mercy.

As Vatican officials were still preparing the release of the papal text, Vatican Radio posted the main quotes on its Web site.

Bertone on Scandal: It's Due to Homosexuality, not Celibacy

(Reuters) - It is homosexuality, not celibacy, that is linked to pedophilia, the Vatican's Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said on Monday, seeking to defuse the sex scandal that has battered the Roman Catholic Church.

On a visit to Chile, Bertone, dubbed the Deputy Pope, also said Pope Benedict would soon take more surprising initiatives regarding the sex abuse scandal but did not elaborate.

"Many psychologists and psychiatrists have shown that there is no link between celibacy and pedophilia but many others have shown, I have recently been told, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia," he told a news conference in Santiago.

"This pathology is one that touches all categories of people, and priests to a lesser degree in percentage terms," he said. "The behavior of the priests in this case, the negative behavior, is very serious, is scandalous."

Bertone's visit to Chile comes as the Catholic Church has been buffeted by scandals concerning sexual abuse of children -- most of them boys -- by priests. There also have been allegations of cover-ups and even that the Pope mishandled cases when he was a bishop in Germany and a Vatican official before his election in 2005.