Pope Sees Sex Scandal as Greatest Threat to Church

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:59 a.m. ET

LISBON, Portugal (AP) -- The clerical abuse scandal represents the greatest threat to the Roman Catholic Church and the crisis was ''born from sins within the church'' not outside, Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday on a trip to Portugal.

He called for profound purification and penance within the church as well as pardon and justice.

In some of his strongest comments to date, Benedict said the Catholic church had always suffered from internal problems but that ''today we see it in a truly terrifying way.''

''The greatest persecution of the church doesn't come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sin within the church,'' the pontiff said. ''The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice.''

(More here.)