Religion

Young people are turning away from the Catholic Church due to scandals – Pope

Published

6 years ago

September 25, 2018

Pope Francis on Tuesday said young people are turned off by the Catholic Church because of sex abuse and financial scandals .
Francis was addressing young people at a Lutheran church in Tallinn , on the last day of a four -day trip to the three Baltic nations of Lithuania , Latvia and Estonia .

“Some of them expressly ask us to leave them alone , because they feel the Church ’ s presence as bothersome or even irritating .

“ They are outraged by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation, by our unpreparedness to really appreciate the lives and sensibilities of the young , ’’ Francis said during a visit to Estonia .

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Report says the Catholic Church is facing a worldwide crisis over allegations that it failed to discipline paedophile priests among its ranks.

On Tuesday , the Catholic Church in Germany presented a report indicating that 1 , 670 priests , 4 . 4 per cent of total Catholic clergy numbers, had abused 3 , 677 people between 1946 and 2014 in Germany.

Most of the victims were underage boys and over 50 per cent of the victims were under the age of 13 , with one in six cases related to accusations of rape .

Many of the perpetrators had simply been moved to other parishes when the abuse was discovered, without informing the communities .

In more than 60 per cent of cases , priests went unpunished .

( dpa/ NAN )