A leading Catholic newspaper criticised a cut-throat "law suit culture" in the United States today as being partly to blame for the child sex scandal rocking the American Catholic Church.
The full-page article in Avvenire, the newspaper of Italy's powerful bishops, was the third such attack in as many weeks by an influential Catholic publication.
The article, headlined "USA - A Country in the Hands of Lawyers", appeared to be part of a concerted attempt by Catholic media in Italy to take a stand against American society ahead of next week's meeting on paedophilia by US bishops in Dallas.
It denounced what it portrayed as a legal culture that aimed to win high damages at any moral cost.
The newspaper, a daily close to the Vatican, suggested it was ironic the paedophilia scandal had received such attention "in a society that spoils children in every way possible but at the same time is aware that it has little respect for them".
The article said child abuse by priests was "horrendous and to be condemned" but that the scandal had whet the appetite of "an army of lawyers, ready to exploit any chance to unleash a million-dollar war of payments for damages".
The Avvenirearticle follows two pieces in the Vatican-sanctioned Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolicaabout the scandal.
Civilta Cattolicasaid last month that a bishop in most cases could not be held responsible for child abuse committed by his priests.
Today's Avvenirearticle repeated the assertion that the Roman Catholic Church could not be treated like a company in which executives were held responsible for damage caused by employees.
It added, however, that "it now appears useless" to invoke this distinction in legal proceedings.