On Holy Thursday, clergy in Europe defend the pope

April 1, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY

Cardinals across Europe used their Holy Thursday sermons to defend Pope Benedict XVI from accusations he played a role in covering up sex-abuse scandals, and an increasingly angry Vatican sought to deflect any criticism in the Western media.

The relationship between the church and the media has become increasingly bitter as the scandal buffeting the 1 billion-member church has touched the pontiff himself. On Wednesday, the church singled out The New York Times for criticism in an unusually harsh attack.

On Holy Thursday, Benedict first celebrated a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica dedicated to the union between the pope and the world’s priests. In the late afternoon, he washed the feet of 12 priests in a ceremony symbolizing humility and commemorating Christ’s Last Supper with his 12 apostles on the evening before his Good Friday crucifixion.

Although there were expectations by some that the pope would address the crisis, Benedict made no reference to the scandal at either ceremony.

Venice’s Cardinal Angelo Scola expressed solidarity with Benedict in his Holy Thursday homily in the lagoon city, describing him as a victim of “deceitful accusations.”

Vienna’s Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, speaking of Benedict’s long years as head of a Vatican office that investigates abuse, said the future pope “had a very clear line of not covering up but clearing up.”

In an article posted Wednesday on the Vatican’s Web site, Cardinal William Levada, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, wrote: “I am not proud of America’s newspaper of record, The New York Times, as a paragon of fairness.”

Levada, an American, said the newspaper wrongly used the case of the Rev. Lawrence Murphy to find fault in Benedict’s handling of abuse cases.

A Times spokeswoman defended the articles and said no one has cast doubt on the reported facts.