British cardinal condemns BBC for accusing pope of covering up abuse

Published: 2006-10-02

LONDON (CNS) -- The president of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales condemned the British Broadcasting Corp. for a documentary which accused Pope Benedict XVI of covering up priest sex abuse against children. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor of Westminster made a formal complaint to the director-general of the BBC about the Oct. 1 documentary. The documentary claimed to reveal how the pope issued a "secret Vatican edict" instructing bishops to put the interests of the church before the safety of children. In an Oct. 2 letter to Mark Thompson, the director-general and a Catholic, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor expressed the "enormous distress and alarm of the Catholic community" at the decision made by the publicly funded broadcaster to show the documentary called "Sex Crimes and the Vatican." The documentary said that in 2001 Pope Benedict, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and the head of the doctrinal congregation, issued an updated version of a 1962 Vatican document, titled "Crimen Sollicitationis" ("The Crime of Solicitation") which the documentary said laid down the rules for covering up sexual scandals.

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