Vatican goes into damage control mode over abuse

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican has gone into full-fledged damage control mode in the priest sex abuse scandal ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's first foreign trip since it erupted. Officials are promising surprising new initiatives. The pope's personal secretary is speaking out. And bishops around the world are being told to report abuse cases to the police.

The revved-up strategy comes as the Vatican tries to stem the damage from weeks of revelations about priests who raped and molested children — and the church officials who kept it quiet — before the pontiff's visit to Malta this weekend. Abuse victims on that majority Roman Catholic Mediterranean island are seeking a papal audience and apology.

Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi declined Tuesday to confirm whether Benedict would meet with victims, but didn't rule it out. The pope is prepared to meet with victims, Lombardi said, but "in a climate of meditation and reflection, not under media pressures."

Before previous foreign trips, Lombardi has declined to confirm meetings with abuse victims until after they were held.

The Vatican has been reeling for weeks since reports surfaced that Benedict — when known as Joseph Ratzinger and served as archbishop in Munich from 1977-82 — approved therapy for a pedophile priest who was allowed to do pastoral work. The priest was later convicted of molesting boys. Since then, hundreds of people have come forward with abuse accusations in Germany and elsewhere in Europe, and old cases with connections to Rome and the pope himself have come to light in the United States.

Initially, the Vatican responded defensively, with Vatican officials and cardinals accusing the media, the Masons, pro-abortion rights and pro-gay marriage supporters for plotting attacks against the pope. Recently, the Vatican has shifted course, still complaining about an anti-Catholic campaign but also promising more transparency and taking initiatives to at least give an impression that change is afoot.

Lombardi said new initiatives were being studied, including more papal meetings with victims as well as a "deepening of the measures of prevention and response" to abuse. He declined to elaborate. But victims groups have long complained that the Vatican has never issued any universal norms instructing bishops on the pastoral care they should provide for victims or prevention strategies to make sure pedophiles aren't admitted into the priesthood in the first place.

On Monday during a trip to Chile, the Vatican's No. 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said he believed the pope would take further initiatives "which won't fail to surprise us." He declined to elaborate.