VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is asking for daily prayers to protect the Catholic Church from what he says are "attacks by the devil," in his latest response to the clerical sex abuse and cover-up scandal roiling his papacy.
A Vatican statement Saturday appeared to be an indirect response to accusations that Francis himself, and other Vatican officials before him, were complicit in covering up the sexual misconduct of a now-disgraced American ex-cardinal.
The Vatican said Francis invited Catholics worldwide to pray the Rosary each day during October "to protect the church from the devil, who is always looking to divide us from God and from one another."
Francis also wants prayers so the church becomes ever more aware of its "guilt, errors and abuses committed in the present and the past."
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