Paedophile priests face 'fires of Hell'
Paedophile priests face the prospect of "burning in Hell" forever, according to the Vatican's top prosecutor dealing with sex abuse cases.
Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice within the Vatican's all-powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is investigating sex claims against clergy.
As well as in Ireland, the Vatican has been beset by abuse cases in America, Germany and Austria -- and it has also faced claims of covering up for and protecting offenders.
Speaking at a ceremony in St Peter's Basilica, Mgr Scicluna told priests who had gathered at a service for victims to pray for both them and for clergy who had "perpetuated abuse".
He then quoted a famous Gospel passage in which Christ said: "Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea."
Of the abusing priests, he said: "It would be better for them if their crimes were their cause of death in this life because for them eternal damnation in the fires of Hell will be greater.
"The Lord was clear on this, that it is better to enter the Kingdom of God without a foot, eye, hand than to enter into the inextinguishable fires of Hell." (© Daily Telegraph, London)
- Nick Pisa in Rome
Irish Independent
