Frantzesco Kangaris / AFP/Getty Images

Demonstrators hold placards during a march protesting against the Pope Benedict XVI's visit to London on Sept. 18, 2010. Pope Benedict XVI expressed his "deep sorrow" Saturday for the "immense suffering" of children abused by Catholic priests, in a homily on the third day of his state visit to Britain.

As Pope Benedict XVI’s prepares to step down, his legacy is being viewed through the prism of how he handled the child sex abuse crisis, with some observers saying he dealt with it aggressively while others calling his response to the scandals “woefully inadequate.”

During Benedict’s eight-year papacy, thousands of people came forward to claim that they had been raped or molested by priests as children, and that bishops had covered it up.

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, it was Benedict’s old office that dealt with abuse cases, yet he never admitted failure by himself or of the Vatican, and never punished bishops who ignored or covered up the abuse.

“It’s hard to escape the fact that his biggest challenge was the sex abuse crisis and it really didn’t get better during his papacy,” said Michael D’Antonio, author of the upcoming book “Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal.” “And in fact, one can see that the church declined in moral authority, especially in the developed world and that includes places like Ireland and Belgium, which were until a few years ago the most Catholic and the most conservatively Catholic countries in the world. And all of this, I really think is traceable to his failure.”

Benedict was “locked into an institution that may not be able to deal with this in a structural way,” he added. “He could go around and minister to victims, which he did, and I think that was a brave and profound thing to do, but he couldn’t change the definitive elements of the Catholic Church that enable abuse.”

Benedict made apologies and met with victims in the United States, Australia, his native Germany, Britain and Malta. The church also paid out more than $2.1 billion in settlements from 2004-2011 to victims, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In 2002, before he took up the papal post, a zero tolerance policy was implemented. But those efforts were not enough, critics said.
One victims’ rights group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called on Benedict to use his remaining days in the post to turn that around by forcing bishops to reveal the names of those priests facing credible accusations of abuse.

Carl Court / AFP/Getty Images

Demonstrators hold placards before a march protesting against the Pope Benedict XVI's visit to London on Sept. 18, 2010. Pope Benedict XVI expressed his "deep sorrow" Saturday for the "immense suffering" of children abused by Catholic priests, in a homily on the third day of his state visit to Britain.

“We can’t mistake words for deeds and, you know, actions speak louder than statements and to be honest with you, we feel that his response has been woefully inadequate,” said Barbara Blaine, the group’s president.

Another group, BishopAccountability.org, a library and internet archive of the scandals, welcomed the church’s efforts to address the troubles among its ranks, such as tackling the issue directly on the Vatican website and by making adjustments to its youth policy.

But the site’s founder, Terence McKiernan, said Ratzinger, even before taking on the papal post, was dogged by the scandal since he had read so many of the accounts of abuse in his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

He said Ratzinger had followed Pope John Paul II’s policy of not defrocking all accused priests — noting that the church was already concerned about losing priests to old age and dwindling seminary numbers.

“I think that it’s a huge opportunity missed, you know, people will say he did things and that’s certainly true,” McKiernan said. “But given the enormity of the crimes … and given the enormous power that the Pope has, I think that you could say that Benedict reacted to all of this rather than taking action. And apologies and nice speeches are not the same as actually taking vigorous action to remove the people responsible and revealing all the information that needs to be revealed. So it’s an opportunity missed, and I think as a result, the church has lost incredible amounts of credibility in all this.”

Vincenzo Pinto / AFP/Getty Images

Pope Benedict XVI puts oil on the altar during the Mass to mark the dedication of the new white marble altar in St. Mary Cathedral in Sydney on July 19, 2008. Pope Benedict XVI apologized explicitly to victims of sex abuse by Catholic clergy, expressing his shame and calling for perpetrators of the "evil" to be brought to justice.

Benedict officially leaves office on Feb. 28. One of those who will participate in electing his successor, Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop Emeritus of Los Angeles, was himself stripped of his administrative and public duties in early February after church personnel files revealed that he and other top Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests, provide damage control for the church and keep parishioners in the dark, NBC Los Angeles reported.

Still, some felt Benedict did step up to tackle the issue engulfing the church.

“He inherited a very tragic situation and he confronted it head on and has been a great reformer on this issue,” said Maureen Ferguson, a senior policy adviser at The Catholic Association. “The Catholic Church in the United States is now one of the leading institutions in terms of child protection policies.”

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, agreed.

“Nobody clearly did more to counter this problem in the Catholic Church,” he said. “ … he did move expeditiously, quite frankly, with a lot greater aggressiveness than his predecessor. John Paul II was a great man but this issue did languish there in the Vatican until Joseph Ratzinger … was able to deal with it.”

Donohue said that about a month before Ratzinger was named Pope, he spoke about the “filth” in the Catholic Church, referring to priests who were sexually abusing children.

He also banished a popular priest from ministry, Father Marcial Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who was accused of sexually abusing underage seminaries, according to the National Catholic Reporter. 

“He took a position which took a great deal of courage to go against a very popular priest,” Donohue said. “An investigation of him had begun (under) John Paul II but it took Benedict to finish him, and he did finish him.”

“I think history will treat him very well in terms of dealing with the problem,” he added. “I think the issue is basically behind us, almost everything we hear today are these old cases.”

But D’Antonio wasn’t sure history would be so favorable to Benedict.

“He would have had to pick up the church and drag it into the 21st century but, you know, he could have,” he said. “He might have died trying, the stress of that might have been even more profound, he would have faced tremendous intrigue and opposition, but I suspect that instead he may go down in history as a caretaker, an interpersonally kind pastor who made no mark when he had the chance to.”

Why doesn't the fact-checking come first?

After a presidential debate, even before the debate has ended, we're able now to read fact-checks from Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact and many news organizations.

But shouldn't the candidates get their facts straight and tell the truth in the first place?

"American politics has become a battle of talking points," said Bill Adair, editor of PolitiFact and Washington bureau chief for The Tampa Bay Times. "Once candidates find a talking point they like, they often stick with it — even when fact-checkers say it's wrong."

Perhaps the first questions in the next presidential debate should be something along these lines...

For Newt Gingrich:

Former Speaker Gingrich, in debate after debate, you've taken credit for balancing four federal budgets when you were the speaker of the House. As has been pointed out repeatedly by fact-checking organizations, the four years of balanced budgets were fiscal 1998 through 2001, but you were in office for only the first two of those budgets. You left the House in January 1999 and had no role in crafting the budgets for the subsequent two years. In addition, you opposed the two tax-raising deals that were largely responsible for balancing the budget. (Fact-checks here from The New York Times and here from The Washington Post.)

Similarly, you said that people can use food stamps "to go to Hawaii," claimed that the ethics charges against you were conducted by "a very partisan political committee," and said that "no federal official at any level is allowed to say 'Merry Christmas.'" 

All these statements were false, according to PolitiFact.

PolitiFact scorecard on Gingrich

Equal-time: Questions for the other candidates are below 

It's been nearly five years since PolitiFact and a host of similar services started debunking the most outrageous statements. In that time, have the candidates become more honest?

"Not overall, but we've seen glimpses that they will alter their wording after we've called out a falsehood," Adair said. "For example, the way Newt said the balanced budget line in the last debate was more accurate, because he didn't say the four consecutive years were when he was speaker. So maybe he responded to the fact-checking."

Here are specific follow-up questions for each of the current Republican candidates, as well as President Barack Obama, based on fact-checking by PolitiFact and the major newspapers:

For Mitt Romney:
Former Governor Romney, in every debate so far, you've said something like, "Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were a big part of why we have the housing crisis." But studies have shown that Fannie and Freddie were late to invest in subprime mortgages, following the lead of Wall Street firms that you never mention. (Fact-check from The New York Times here and here.) The unspoken narrative in your comments, and those of the other candidates, panders inaccurately to those who want to believe that loans to unworthy minorities, driven by the Community Reinvestment Act, caused the financial crisis. In fact, most subprime loans were made by lenders who were not covered by the CRA, but who were driven by the need for profits to satisfy their Wall Street investors. Are you trying to deflect blame from Wall Street?

Similarly, you have said repeatedly that President Obama "went around the world and apologized for America," said "I don't have lobbyists running my campaign," and claimed that President Obama's health care law "represents a government takeover of health care."

All false, according to PolitiFact.

PolitiFact scorecard for Romney.

For Rick Santorum:
Former Senator Santorum, you have repeatedly criticized Gov. Romney's health insurance program in Massachusetts for the so-called individual mandate, for requiring individuals to buy health insurance. Why not mention that in 1994, when you were running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania, you supported an individual mandate.

Similarly, you said that an Obama administration policy prohibits people who work with at-risk youth from promoting marriage as a way to avoid poverty, claimed that "a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion," and said, "Any child born prematurely, according to the president, in his own words, can be killed." 

All false, according to PolitiFact.

PolitiFact scorecard for Santorum.

For Ron Paul:
Representative Paul, you've said that the United States "is bankrupt." The country isn't unable to pay its debts, nor is it impoverished. The credit rating of the United States is AA+ at Standard & Poor's (one step below the top of a 20-step scale), and AAA at the other rating agencies.

Similarly, you claimed that only a few sentences in your racist and conspiratorial newsletters were inflammatory, that the majority of the American people believe we should go back on the gold standard and that you never vote for legislation unless it's specifically authorized in the Constitution.

All false, according to PolitiFact.

PolitiFact scorecard for Paul.

And in the general election, maybe the first question to the incumbent could start something like this:

For Barack Obama:
President Obama, you've said that most of the money for your campaign came from small donors, that you've excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs, that you haven't raised taxes once.

All false, according to PolitiFact.

You've claimed that your opponents plan to cut funding for Israel to zero. PolitiFact rated that claim "Pants on Fire," its lowest rating.

"One theme we've seen in Obama's statements," says PolitiFact's Bill Adair, "is that he is exaggerating how he has fulfilled promises. We know this, of course, because we keep track of all 500+ promises on our Obameter."

PolitiFact scorecard for Obama and Obameter keeping track of his campaign policies

Should the candidates be asked: As you prepare for a debate, is part of your preparation to remind yourself, whatever I say, I should play it straight with the American people? Aren't you embarrassed to repeat statements that any 8th-grader could look up in 20 seconds and discover have been proven untrue? Or do you calculate that it's acceptable to twist the facts to win an election?

Readers, what do you think? What would make the candidates stick to the facts? Add your comments below.