Looks like Papa Ratzi’s throwing his own under the Popemobile:

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI told priests who have abused children to submit to the “demands of justice,” according to a letter released Saturday.

The pontiff said a misplaced concern for the church’s reputation and inadequate methods of choosing priests had contributed to decades of sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy.

In an open letter written to Catholics in the Irish Republic, the pope said he was “deeply disturbed” by the flood of allegations in Ireland and told victims he was “truly sorry.”

However, the pope also blamed an increasing secularization of society for abuse by priests.

There was no mention of any Vatican responsibility in the scandal and no specific punishments doled out for the bishops who have been blamed by victims and Irish government-ordered investigations for having covered up years of abuse.

Supposedly the pope has been mulling about writing a letter since last summer addressing the Ryan report sexual abuse findings.

According to Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, the pope started thinking about writing the letter last summer after the publication of the Ryan report — one of three separate reports on sexual and physical abuse by Irish clergy that has come out since 2005.

The Ryan report, published in May 2009, investigated abuse in Catholic-run institutions primarily from 1936 to 1970. Many of the alleged abusers in the 2,600-page report were not priests, but nuns or Catholic lay people.

Anyone else see the frantic skidmarks the Popemobile is leaving, as His Holiness tries desperately to back away from his own culpability?

What say you, Blenders?

* Related The official Vatican line: the Pope is being set up

* The child-rape scandal has closed in on Pope Benedict XVI