Responding to the prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq, the Vatican foreign minister said Friday that a democracy must punish those responsible for such acts, as well as their direct superiors.
Archbishop Giovanni Lajolo, in an interview with Italian state-run television's TG2 evening news, said "the scandal is so much bigger if it was committed by Christians. But Christianity isn't the issue here, but the opposite of it."
"It's necessary to add that in a democracy, such episodes should not be hidden, but publicly denounced, as happened in the United States, and that those responsible should face justice and punishment, as should their direct superiors who failed in the serious duty of oversight," he said.
The remarks came amid the scandal over abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison, where photographs were taken showing smiling American guards tormenting Iraqi prisoners.
On Wednesday, the Vatican newspaper headlined its editions with reports of abuse of Iraqi prisoners, saying the scandal had earned America the disdain of world public opinion. "Mankind has been scarred," read the headline of the front-page story in L'Osservatore Romano.