Sacrilege ? Crime ?

Just as I thought that Pope Franciskus is a pretty reasonable man, he goes and says something which makes me wonder if my positively revised judgement was premature and hasty.
Just before  his way back to Rome,  Francis spoke to three women and two men, all of whom victims of sexual abuse by priests, educators and members of family.
This is what he is reported to have said:
"The sexual abuse of children, perpetrated by a priest is almost a sacrilege. And not only he is guilty, but also those who knew and covered up such misuse."
Almost a Sacrilege ?  ALMOST ???
He has to be joking !
A  Sacrilege is "the violation of a sacred object or person, or the showing of irreverence to sacred persons."
The putting ecclesiastical vestments to secular use was, not so long ago, considered a sacrilege.

Please allow me to compare those transgressions:

1.) A layperson enters a church and removes a crucifix, which he then breaks and scatters the pieces, or he may even open the tabernacle and misuse its contents. Or, heaven forbid, he may find the Priest's vestments and put them on, while he commits these acts.
These are sacrilegious acts.
They hurt no person, no one is traumatised and the damage, if any, can easily be repaired.

2.) A trusted Priest, of whom a child is told that he is a particularly good Person of God, who knows and communicates with God, to whom the child's parents show great respect and reverence, sexually abuses this child and as many other children as he can get his hands on.
Each of these victims will likely suffer for the rest of his/her life, will be traumatised, and will likely never be able to enter into healthy relationships. 
This Priest and the Bishop who knows about these acts are guilty of a most heinous crime.

To say, as Franciskus said, that this sexual misuse is ALMOST  as bad as the above described "sacrilege" surely shows a total lack of understanding of either or both of these transgressions.

Sexual abuse of children by anyone, particularly by Priests is not just ALMOST as bad as sacrilegious  misdeeds. It is immeasurably worse.
To classify it as ALMOST as bad is a trivialising of a serious crime, a trivialising which has been going on for as long as the crime itself. 

Franciskus' predecessor, Benedict XVI in fact, instructed his Bishops that such transgressions must not be reported to civilian authorities (Police) but must be dealt with internally,  by ecclesiastical bodies.
Such "must be dealt with" at best resulted in a transfer of the criminal Priest to another diocese, where he found another group of victims.

Pope Franciskus either does not understand the words "Sexual Abuse", "Sacrilege"  or "ALMOST"

How else does one explain this utterance ?


Bertstravels
is astonished,
to say the least.