Benedict admonishes the bishops

Does anybody know where to find the full text of Benedict's remarks to the US bishops yesterday? I want to see his remarks about the sex abuse scandal in full. This is what the L.A. Times said:

WASHINGTON -- On a day filled with pageantry and prayer, Pope Benedict XVI focused Wednesday on the sexual-abuse scandal afflicting the Roman Catholic Church, offering an unflinching acknowledgment that the crisis was mishandled by church officials and that victims deserve care and compassion.

The pope, speaking to Catholic bishops at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, the largest Roman Catholic church in North America, used some of his strongest language to date to condemn the sexual-abuse scandal and its enduring damage.

He urged the bishops to "strive to eliminate this evil wherever it occurs" and to give priority to care for the victims "of such gravely immoral behavior" by clerics who "betrayed their priestly obligations."

"It is your God-given responsibility as pastors to bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust, to foster healing, to promote reconciliation and to reach out with loving concern to those so seriously wronged," he said.

[snip]

By emphasizing the wrongness of the sexual-abuse scandal on the first two days of his U.S. tour, the pope is attempting to signal the importance he attaches to the issue and that he is determined not to shy away from it. Church leaders have come under withering criticism in the past for failing to effectively confront the thousands of abuse cases and for allowing accused priests to avoid prosecution.

"Responding to this situation has not been easy," the pope told the bishops. "It is vitally important that the vulnerable always be shielded from those who would cause harm. In this regard, your efforts to heal and protect are bearing great fruit not only for those directly under your pastoral care, but for all of society."

Benedict suggested that the crisis has occurred at a time when society devalues human dignity and distorts the role of sexuality through pornography and violence.

Children, he said, must be taught "authentic moral values" and spared "the degrading manifestations and the rude manipulation of sexuality so prevalent today."

In addition to thousands of victims, the pope said priests, too, needed special guidance and counsel to repair damage to the church, its credibility and its ability to carry out its mission.

Priests "have experienced shame over what has occurred, and there are those who feel they have lost some of the trust and esteem they once enjoyed," he said.

Benedict said the bishops must guide by example, leading spiritually holy lives that can be emulated by priests and reassuring to the faithful.

"When the faithful know that their pastor is a man who prays and who dedicates his life to serving them, they respond with warmth and affection which nourishes and sustains the life of the whole community," he said.

His remarks won praise from his audience, but one victims group said they fell short.

One bishop, Walter Hurley of Grand Rapids, Mich., said the message was encouraging. "This is a real problem in the church and he addressed it in a realistic way," Hurley said as he emerged from the basilica ceremony.

"He recognized the problem and said how terrible a tragedy it was. He talked about the mistakes that were made including some bishops who did not handle it well," Bishop Tod Brown of the Diocese of Orange, Calif., said. "I thought it was very frank and refreshing. I think he realizes it's a great wound for our church in this country."

However, Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests said the pope ignored what the group maintains was a systematic practice by many senior clergy of stonewalling police and investigators to protect abusive priests.

What do you think? I'm glad he brought it up, but I find these remarks really insufficient (but you knew I would say that). I'm thinking of the auxiliary bishop I know about personally who, when an immigrant father approached him to report that his son had been molested by several priests at a parish, whipped out his checkbook and offered to write the man a check in exchange for the man signing over his right to legal representation to the diocese's lawyers. The immigrant father may have been a laborer who spoke no English, but he had enough sense (and dignity!) to walk out and get a Jewish lawyer. I'm thinking of the bishop I know of personally who told a woman who had been compelled into a sexual affair by her confessor, who threatened to tell her sins to her husband if she didn't submit. The woman finally had a nervous breakdown from all the guilt and shame. When she, her lawyer and her psychologist (a faithful Catholic) met with their bishop to discuss the matter, the bishop told her that if she filed suit or went public, he'd ruin her because "I have to protect the people of God."

Those are just two stories, and by no means among the worse. It's foolish to expect Benedict to know about them, but surely he knows about the more high profile stories, like Cardinal Roger Mahony's outrageous behavior. Seriously, I think the world of Benedict, but I don't get how this or any pope can discover that his bishops had betrayed the faithful and the Faith so horribly, and with such catastrophic results, and not read them the riot act. Well, I'm not the Pope, thank God, but it makes no sense to me, and while I'm grateful that he gave attention to the matter, calling it "badly handled" is only stating the obvious, and hardly sufficient to the gravity of the bishops' performance, and what they've done to the RCC in America (again, read Phil's book; he makes it clear, from an orthodox Catholic perspective, that the damage done by two generations of episcopal mismanagement has damaged the faith far beyond the abuse scandal).

But you kind of figured I'd say that, prolly. What do you think?

UPDATE: I mean, notice this comment from a bishop as he left the speech:

"He recognized the problem and said how terrible a tragedy it was. He talked about the mistakes that were made including some bishops who did not handle it well," Bishop Tod Brown of the Diocese of Orange, Calif., said. "I thought it was very frank and refreshing. I think he realizes it's a great wound for our church in this country."

Ah yes, "mistakes were made." Bishop Brown is a Mahony crony who has a bad record of covering up abuse (for example). That he could come out of a meeting with the pope speaking so chirpily about how "frank" and "refreshing" the sex-abuse lecture was -- as opposed to hanging his head in shame and penitence -- is to me a sign that the Pope went very light on that bunch. Pity, that.