The Catholic Church should clean up its act following multiple child abuse scandals by punishing abusers and compensating victims, an influential cardinal says. "That's enough. We have to seriously clean up the church," Cardinal Walter Kasper, a top adviser to Pope Benedict XVI, told Italian daily La Repubblica in an interview published on Saturday.
"Sexual abuses of minors by representatives of the clergy are criminal, shameful acts, they are unacceptable mortal sins," he said.
"I think such a shocking problem... needs a wider analysis for maybe the whole church and not just one country," the cardinal said.
Charges of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in several countries around the world have rocked the church in recent years.
In the most recent scandal, a German bishop on Friday acknowledged sexual abuse of members of a boy choir in the southern German city of Regensburg that was formerly headed up by the Pope's brother, Georg Ratzinger.
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