We are to be ambassadors for Christ, Saint Paul reminds readers in this Sunday's second reading. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi Tuesday acknowledged the "gravity of the crisis the church is undergoing" after fresh allegations surfaced in recent weeks of widespread sexual abuse by members of the clergy in Germany, Austria, and Holland. But the Vatican said it was wrong to focus blame for child abuse exclusively on the church, saying "the issue is much broader."

Lombardi also denied allegations by a German government minister that the Vatican had hampered investigations of pedophilia by "creating a wall of silence." Reports last month alleged that Catholic priests had sexually abused more than 100 children at Jesuit schools there.

"Errors committed by the institutions and members of the church are particularly reprehensible given the church's educational and moral responsibility," Lombardi told Vatican Radio. "But every objective and well-informed person knows that . . . concentrating accusations on the church alone gets things out of perspective," he said.

Lombardi cited a recent report by Austrian authorities that detailed 17 cases of abuse in institutions linked to the Catholic Church, but 510 in other organizations.

The Dutch Roman Catholic Church on Tuesday said it would ask an independent commission to look into more than 200 reports of alleged sexual abuses by priests, in response to an increasing number of victims coming forward.

Germans were outraged by reports of abuse by Jesuits and allegations of beating and pedophilia at three Catholic schools in Bavaria, including one linked to a prestigious choir run by Pope Benedict XVI's brother from 1964 to 1994.

Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, 86, has acknowledged he slapped pupils in the face to discipline them but has denied any knowledge of sexual abuse. "At the beginning I also repeatedly administered a slap in the face, but always had a bad conscience about it," Ratzinger is quoted as saying in an interview with a German newspaper Tuesday.

The latest allegations follow years of damaging scandal in Ireland and the United States. The U.S. church has paid some $2 billion in settlements to victims since 1992.

Source: An article by Daniel Flynn for Reuters News, Allan Hall for TimesOnline.co.uk, and Melissa Eddy
and Alessandra Rizzo for the Huffington Post