I guess that Catholic priests abusing countless of children doesn't count...nor does the Spanish inquisitions. (see emphasized text).


Vatican Says Prison Abuse Said Bigger to U.S. Than 9/11

ROME - The scandal of prisoner abuses by U.S. soldiers in Iraq (news - web sites) has dealt a bigger blow to the United States than the Sept. 11 attacks, the Vatican (news - web sites) foreign minister told an Italian newspaper.

In an interview published Wednesday in the Rome daily La Repubblica, Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo described the abuses as "a tragic episode in the relationship with Islam" and said the scandal would fuel hatred for the West and for Christianity. "The torture? A more serious blow to the United States than Sept. 11. Except that the blow was not inflicted by terrorists but by Americans against themselves," Lajolo was quoted as saying in La Repubblica.

Lajolo said that "intelligent people in Arab countries understand that in a democracy such episodes are not hidden and are punished ... Still the vast mass of people — under the influence of Arab media — cannot but feel aversion and hate for the West growing inside themselves." And, he added, "the West is often identified with Christianity." The remarks were not the first by Lajolo on the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. In the wake of the scandal, he had said that a democracy should punish those responsible and their direct superiors. The Vatican paper, L'Osservatore Romano, has also run some harsh comments in the past days. On Monday, it criticized what it called a Pentagon cover-up and took sharp aim at the photograph of a soldier holding a prisoner by a leash. In Wednesday's interview, Lajolo said the coalition's priority should be "putting as soon as possible at the head of the Iraqi executive an Iraqi leader who speaks to the Iraqis in Arabic and not in English."