ROME - A top Vatican official has harshly criticized The New York Times' coverage of the Catholic sexual abuse crisis in a lengthy article posted on the Vatican Web site.

Cardinal William Levada, an American who heads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the newspaper "lacks fairness" and that it accuses the pope of "leniency and inaction" in dealing with abuse cases.

"I ask the Times to reconsider its attack mode about Pope Benedict XVI and give the world a more balanced view of a leader it can and should count on," Levada wrote in the article, dated March 26 but posted online Wednesday.

Levada succeeded the pope in leading the congregation, which oversees Catholic doctrine and issues of faith and morals. When Benedict was in the role, Levada said, he helped enact new church legislation that greatly helped in dealing with abuse cases.

That new legislation included designating the sexual abuse of minors by clerics as "graviora delicta," or most grave crimes; streamlining the administrative process for judgments; and adjusting the maximum age of a minor to 18 to correspond with civil law in many countries, Levada said.

He said the pope's legacy with the congregation has benefited the entire Catholic Church.

"It seems to me," he wrote, "that we owe Pope Benedict a great debt of gratitude for introducing the procedures that have helped the church to take action in the face of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse of minors."

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