Pope Francis said, "This is an absolute monstrosity, a horrendous sin, completely opposed to what Christ teaches us." It's actually a crime.

Why did he not acknowledge it so? At the Royal Commission in Australia, bishop after bishop, leaders of religious institutes over and over described pedophilia as a 'moral lapse' and seemed stunned when reminded that child sexual abuse is a criminal act not just a lapse. Most seemed also to have selective memories about what the Gospel says about Jesus teaching on what should happen to those who put tripping stones (scandala) in the way of little children. Clearly millstones are a little too confronting. 

Francis and the rest of the bishops should wake up to themselves and very quickly. Sorries and apologies are wearing thin on the back of ongoing institutional denialism which are even more criminal than the sum total of all the individual crimes of pedophilia.