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Pope Francis said that the church must "act decisively" to stop child sexual abuse by priests.

VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis wants the Catholic Church to "act decisively" to root out sexual abuse of children by priests and ensure the perpetrators are punished, the Vatican said on Friday.

Francis, in a meeting with the Holy See's doctrinal chief, Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, had declared that combating sexual abuse was important "for the Church and its credibility", a statement said.

Francis inherited a Church mired in problems and a major scandal over priestly abuse of children. It was believed to be the first time he had taken up the issue of sex abuse with a senior member of his staff since his election on March 13.

Mueller is head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department which includes the office of the "promoter of justice", or sex crimes prosecutor, which investigates cases of sexual abuse and decides if priests are to be defrocked.

Slideshow: Pope Francis: His life before the papacy

Marcos Brindicci / Reuters

Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Argentina was elected to lead the Catholic Church following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI. 

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Francis said the department should continue to "act decisively as far as cases of sexual abuse are concerned, promoting, above all, measures to protect minors, help for those who have suffered such violence in the past (and) the necessary procedures against those who are guilty," a statement said.

It said the pope wanted Catholic bishops around the world to promote and put into place "directives in this matter which is so important for the witness of the Church and its credibility".

A victims' group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the statement did not go far enough and criticized it for saying that the Church's stance against sexual abuse was "a continuation" of the line wanted by Francis' predecessor, Pope Benedict.

"Action, not discussion, is needed," SNAP said in a statement.

"We can't confuse words with actions. When we do, we hurt kids. We must insist on new tangible action that helps vulnerable children protect their bodies, not old vague pledges that help a widely-discredited institution protect its reputation," it said.

SNAP and other victims groups say there is much still to be discovered about how the Church behaved in the past and want more bishops who were aware of abuse to be held responsible.

The Catholic Church's crisis began in Boston in 2002 when media began reporting how cases of abuse were systematically covered up and abusive priests shuttled from parish to parish instead of being defrocked and handed over to civil authorities.

Since then, the Catholic Church in many countries has set up new guidelines to deal with cases of past abuse, prevent new cases, report abuse to police, and stop potential abusers from entering the priesthood in the first place.

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This story was originally published on Fri Apr 5, 2013 8:28 AM EDT

Pope Francis suggested in an interview last year that the Catholic Church's rule that priests be celibate "can change" and admitted he was tempted by a woman as a young seminarian.

He said that the married clergy of the Eastern churches are "very good priests" and those pushing for the same in Roman Catholicism do so "with a certain pragmatism."

For now, though, "the discipline of celibacy stands firm," he said, adding that priests should quit if they can't abstain from sex or if they get a woman pregnant.

The former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio's comments -- published in the Spanish-language book “On the Heavens and the Earth” and translated by the Catholic news website Aleteia -- were made when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Father Thomas Reese, a Vatican analyst for the National Catholic Reporter, said he was surprised by the remarks because "the last few popes have been pretty clear they were not open to changing it or having a discussion about it."

While Bergoglio certainly wasn't advocating for a rule change, "it looks like he may be willing to talk about it," Reese said.

The future pope began the conversation with a personal anecdote from his years as a seminarian.

"I was dazzled by a girl I met at an uncle's wedding," he said, according to Aleteia. "I was surprised by her beauty, her intellectual brilliance ... and, well, I was bowled over for quite a while.

"I kept thinking and thinking about her. When I returned to the seminary after the wedding, I could not pray for over a week because when I tried to do so, the girl appeared in my head. I had to rethink what I was doing."

He said he had to choose between the girl and the priesthood, and though he picked the latter, he knows not everyone would.

"When something like this happens to a seminarian, I help him go in peace to be a good Christian and not a bad priest," Bergoglio said.

"In the Western Church to which I belong, priests cannot be married as in the Byzantine, Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Catholic Churches. In those Churches, the priests can be married, but the bishops have to be celibate. They are very good priests," he added.

"In Western Catholicism, some organizations are pushing for more discussion about the issue. For now, the discipline of celibacy stands firm. Some say, with a certain pragmatism, that we are losing manpower. If, hypothetically, Western Catholicism were to review the issue of celibacy, I think it would do so for cultural reasons (as in the East), not so much as a universal option."

He said that "for the moment" he was in favor of maintaining the celibacy rule "because we have ten centuries of good experiences rather than failures."

But, he added, "It is a matter of discipline, not of faith. It can change."

In the meantime, though, he said celibacy should not be treated with a wink and a nod. Any priest who strays and becomes a father "has to leave the ministry," he said.

"Now, if a priest tells me he got excited and that he had a fall, I help him to get on track again. There are priests who get on track again and others who do not," he said.

"The double life is no good for us. I don't like it because it means building on falsehood. Sometimes I say: 'If you can not overcome it, make your decision.'"

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LONDON -- A Roman Catholic Church with women cardinals? And priests who are not celibate?

That is the controversial hope of a group of priests who claim to represent the majority of Irish Catholics.

More than 1,000 lay church-goers and priests attended a meeting in Dublin this week to discuss these ideas and others they believe are essential to the survival of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

'A mere trickle'
Their over-riding concern is, given the average age of priests in Ireland is 64, that in just 20 years there will not be enough priests to serve the country's congregations.

"The flood of men that used to come forward for the vocation of priesthood is today a mere trickle," Father Brendan Hoban of the Association of Catholic Priests, told NBC News. "If there are no priests, there will be no Eucharist, no Mass. We want to know what is Plan B."

The facts demonstrate that Hoban's concern is justified: 20 years ago there were 10 seminaries in Ireland training priests. Today there is only one, with about 65 residential students.

The group's bleak prediction is that, without reform, the Irish Catholic Church will virtually disappear within the next two decades. The organization currently has more than 850 members, representing about one-third of all active priests in Ireland.

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The association is convinced the requirement for celibacy is to blame and says it needs to be dropped.

According to a survey commissioned by the group, 90 percent of Irish Catholics support the introduction of married priests.

And they just have to look across the Irish Sea to Britain for evidence of how this might work. There a number of married Anglican priests who disagreed with the ordination of women who now serve as Catholic priests -- with their wives beside them.

In Ireland, the Association of Catholic Priests is calling for the church to welcome back those who gave up the priesthood in order to get married. Similarly mature, married men, drawn to priesthood later in life, should be accepted, it says.

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The survey also revealed support for the ordination of women runs at 77 percent in Ireland. The association believes this is currently an unattainable goal but instead members say they want to seek ways for women to have a greater voice in the Church. They even go so far as to demand for the appointment of female cardinals, believing that women should be involved in decisions at every level of the church's activities.

"If women had been involved in decision-making, the Church would not have had such a mish-mash in its response to child sex-abuse cases," Hoban added. "If parents and women had been involved it is extremely unlikely a (pedophile) priest would have been moved on to other parishes."

The calls for change come as the current Cardinal of Ireland, Sean Brady, faces down accusations that he failed to pass on information to police about child abuse when he was a young priest. Some have demanded his resignation, which he has rejected.

The issue of child sex abuse and the Vatican's handling of pedophile priests has damaged the Church greatly in Ireland.

The Association of Catholic Priests believes to move on -- to survive -- the Church needs to modernize and the Vatican needs to listen.

However, several priests have been disciplined by the Vatican for expressing their views: Father Tony Flannery has been ordered to stop writing a monthly column for a Catholic magazine, something he had been doing for 14 years.

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