Pope Francis thanked journalists for not allowing the Church to 'sweep' sexual abuse scandals 'under the carpet'

• Pope Francis on Saturday thanked journalists for exposing sexual abuse in the Church, Reuters reported.
• He thanked reporters "for helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the abuse victims."

Pope Francis on Saturday thanked journalists for exposing sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic Church, Reuters reported.

The pope, according to the report, said, "thank you for what you tell us about what is wrong in the Church, for helping us not to sweep it under the carpet, and for the voice you have given to the abuse victims."

Pope Francis also said it was journalists' "mission" to leave their newsrooms to report about what is going on in the world and to combat misinformation.

"Not everything can be told through email, the phone, or a screen," the pope said, according to the report.

The pope made the comments Saturday at an event to honor two longtime reporters who covered the Vatican, according to Reuters, including Reuters reporter Philip Pullella and Valentina Alazraki of Mexico's Noticieros Televisa.

As Reuters noted, the sexual abuse scandal rocked the Catholic Church beginning in 2002 when The Boston Globe ran a series of stories about the longtime abuse of minors by clergy and the culture of coverups within the Church.

A recent investigation in France documented the sexual abuse of more than 200,000 children by French clerics over the past 70 years, according to the report.

Pope Francis faced criticism earlier in his tenure as the leader of the Catholic Church and claims that he did not believe in victims of abuse. But Francis apologized in 2018 for some of his past actions and in 2019 called for an "all-out battle" against sexual abuse in the church, Reuters reported.