Former First Lady of California Maria Shriver said that the Catholic Church was embarrassing before Pope Francis on MSNBC Thursday morning.
“I myself as a Catholic – just two and a half years ago – it was kind of embarrassing to walk into your church,” Shriver said, referring to sexual abuse allegations facing many Catholic priests.
Shriver praised many of the changes that Pope Francis has made, both in Rome and “on the parish level.”
Many of those changes, in fact, occurred under Pope Benedict, even while he was Cardinal Ratizinger working under Pope John Paul II.
A close advisor of Pope Francis, Cardinal Godfried Danneels, covered up sexual abuse in his dioceses for years and remained a close confidant of the pope.
Pope Benedict, on the other hand, worked to clean up the sex abuse scandal.
For example, Father Marcial Maciel, a priest who founded an order called the Legionaries of Christ and was a known sexual predator, was ignored by Pope John Paul II for years, but Benedict ordered investigations immediately.
Watch the clip of Maria Shriver below:
