Pope Francis said Saturday that recent accusations leveled against him for allegedly mishandling the case of serial homosexual abuser Cardinal Theodore McCarrick are really an attack against the Church itself.
Referring to Satan in his final address to the synod of bishops the pope said, “Because of our sins, the great accuser takes advantage and roams about seeking someone to accuse, as we read in the first chapter of Job… Right now, he is accusing us forcefully, and this accusation becomes persecution as well,” he said.
Some in the Church are persecuted directly, such as those in the Middle East, the pope said, but “there is also another kind of persecution, of continual accusations to soil the church, and the Church should not be soiled… It is a difficult time because the accuser is attacking the mother through us and the mother should not be attacked,” he said.