Priest Says Pope Is 'Not Being Truthful' About Sex Abuse Cases

April 12, 2010— -- A defiant Massachusetts priest today accused Pope Benedict XVI of lying about his role in what the priest said was a cover up of "systemic" child abuse by Catholic priests.

The Rev. James Scahill of St. Michael's Parish in East Longmeadow made his comments one day after he took to the pulpit during Sunday mass and called for the pope to resign.

"I think there has been a cover-up, knowingly, to protect the image of the institution and the image of priesthood, even at the expense of children," Scahill told the ABC News affiliate WCVB. "By moving these pedophiles and ephebophiles from parish to parish, they placed innocent, unsuspecting children in harm's way. And also, by placing these weak men in further temptation, they frankly were as culpable of the victimization as the victimizer."

Pedophiles prey on prepubescent children while ephebophiles prey on adolescents.

Critics have accused the Pope of negligence in handling abuse cases while serving as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Church's enforcement agency, for more than two decades.

The Vatican in recent weeks has been rocked by allegations of abuse in Germany, Ireland and in the United States. The pope has come in for particular criticism for halting the effort to defrock a priest who admitted molesting boys in a school for the deaf.

Scahill said priests from even the smallest parishes have known for decades that their fellow clergymen were engaged in inappropriate behavior with children and it was naive to believe the highest echelons of the Church were unaware.

"The cover-up of the abuse of children and minors in this church has been systemic," the priest said.

"As it's being made clear, that this perversity is so pervasive, it's global, how can we suspect that the Vatican didn't know?"

The pope hasn't directly addressed the accusations, but his allies have said the pope did not condone coverups of sexual abuse.

"I would think he's not being truthful," Scahill said.

At another point the priest said that if he could ask the pope one question it would be, "Holy Father, are you telling the truth about the fact that the cover-up of these horrific crimes has been systemic in our church?"