Society Shares Blame for Scandals, Vatican Says : Catholic Church: Permissiveness is ‘real culprit’ in abuse of children by priests, spokesman says .

The Vatican says a permissive society has to share the blame for child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, which has been specially highlighted by scandals in the United States.

Chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls spoke out Wednesday after Pope John Paul II wrote to U.S. bishops about a scandal that has cost the U.S. church a reported $400 million in damages and severely tarnished its image.

“One would have to ask if the real culprit is not a society that is irresponsibly permissive, hyper-inflated with sexuality (and) capable of creating circumstances that induce even people who have received a solid moral formation to commit grave moral acts,” Navarro-Valls said.

He accused some media of sensationalism, saying the number of priests implicated in the scandal--about 400--was little more than 1% of all U.S. Catholic priests.

He suggested that the percentage of priests involved may be less than that of other sectors of the population.

Lawsuits by adults, who claim that as children they were sexually abused by priests, have cost the U.S. bishops a reported $400 million in legal settlements, according to one church source. Most of the settlements have been out of court.

The Pope wrote to U.S. bishops Monday expressing pain and worry over a barrage of cases of sexual misconduct. He announced the formation of a committee of experts from the Vatican and the United States to study the controversial issue.

Informed church sources said the Vatican and U.S. bishops were at loggerheads over how to deal with such priests.

In order to protect dioceses from legal action that is bleeding their finances, U.S. bishops want powers to dismiss priests suspected or convicted of child sex abuse.

The Vatican is reluctant to relinquish its control over the “laicization,” or dismissal, of priests. Canon or church law provides for a complicated legal procedure that gives the Vatican the final say and allows for appeals.

“The Pope has made it very clear that this type of behavior on the part of priests is unacceptable,” one church source said.

But the source said the Vatican believed that there could be some dangers in a quick dismissal procedure.

“They (the Vatican) have said in the past that they are not going to bend the rules because this could abuse the rights of individuals,” he added.

“It would be a serious concession if a bishop would be allowed to dismiss a priest without an appeal.”

The sources said the bishops, who discussed the problem with the Pope and other officials during visits here this year, were unhappy with the Vatican’s attitude to the problem.

They added that Vatican officials had only recently come to recognize the American legal tradition of suing organizations for damages caused by their employees.

One source said the money issue was important because the lawsuits were eroding the U.S. church’s financial base.

The problem of sexual abuse of minors has also rocked Catholic churches in Canada, Britain and Ireland. But the cases have received the most publicity in the United States, where several books have been written on the issue recently.

Three bishops--two in the United States and one in Ireland--have also resigned after having affairs with women.