Pope Apologizes for Sexual Abuse: ROME -- Pope John Paul II offered an apology today for sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy, saying it has caused the victims "great suffering and spiritual harm" and has damaged the church. The pontiff tucked his one-paragraph reference into a 120-page message to Catholics in Oceania on a wide variety of issues raised by their bishops in 1998. Meeting at the Vatican, the bishops had condemned sexual abuse within the church and in society as a whole. John Paul's message, said by the Vatican to be the first personally sent by a pope over the Internet, also followed a series of articles in the National Catholic Reporter newspaper quoting internal Vatican reports about sexual abuse of nuns and other women by priests and bishops. According to reports cited by the U.S.-based weekly last spring, some priests and missionaries forced nuns to have sex with them and, in several instances, forced the victims to have abortions. The reports covered cases in 23 countries, including the United States.