The number of cases of abuse in Chile's Roman Catholic Church under investigation by prosecutors has more than tripled to 119 in the past month, the national prosecuting authority said on Friday.
Pope Francis encouraged an act of inner judgment, in a way that, it is assumed, could deflect from the lynch-mob attitude that is currently growing in segments of the Church.
As questioning around abuse in the Church reaches fever pitch in America, the Pope's visit to Dublin also asks questions that the Irish Church needs to answer.
Pope Francis said on Sunday he would not respond to explosive accusations by a former top Vatican official that the pontiff had covered up sexual abuse, saying dismissively that the document containing the allegations "speaks for itself".
Pope Francis, facing simultaneous clergy sexual abuse crises in several countries, on Monday wrote an unprecedented letter to all the world's Catholics asking each of them to help uproot "this culture of death".
In a long statement that broke the Vatican's silence over a damning US grand jury report, spokesman Greg Burke said the Holy See was taking the report 'with great seriousness'.
The Vatican said it had changed its universal catechism, a summary of Church teaching, to reflect Pope Francis' total opposition to capital punishment.
Pope Francis led a summit of religious leaders demanding peace in the Middle East on Saturday, condemning a "murderous indifference" he said is fanning violence and sparking a an exodus of Christians.
When Pope Francis wanted to appoint a woman as deputy head of the Vatican press office in 2016, he quickly ran into opposition from the Catholic Church's male-dominated hierarchy.