VATICAN CITY – “How can a priest, at the service of Christ and the Church, come to cause so much pain?” asks Pope Francis in the preface of the book of the Swiss-born Daniel Pittet, victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest, published Monday by Repubblica.

 Francis "asks for forgiveness” for paedophile priests, of which stories have been circulating recently, reiterating that the situation is “an absolute monstrosity, a horrendous sin (…) destroying not only the life of the victim but also the Church.”

 Concerning those who have committed suicide due to such abuse, the head of the Holy See claimed, “These deaths weigh heavy on my heart, on my conscience and on the whole of the Church. To the families of victims, I send my love and my pain.”

 The pontiff reinstates that it is the duty of the Church to treat priests who betray their mission with “extreme severity,” assuring, "we will be inflexible."

 sw