The Pope has urged Catholics to pray daily to protect the church from 'turbulence', as more and more sexual abuse revelations emerge.

In a Vatican statement released on Saturday, Pope Francis urged Catholics the world over to pray every day in October in order 'to protect the Church from the devil, who always seeks to separate us from God and from each other'.

The Pope called prayer a 'weapon' to be used against 'the great accuser' who he claimed 'can only be defeated by prayer'.

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Pope Francis leading a mass in Freedom Square in Tallinn, Estonia on Tuesday during a four-day tour of the Baltics this week

'With this request for intercession the Holy Father asks the faithful of all the world to pray that the Holy Mother of God place the Church beneath her protective mantle,' the statement read.

'To preserve her from the attacks by the devil, the great accuser, and at the same time to make her more aware of the faults, the errors and the abuses committed in the present and in the past, and committed to combating without any hesitation, so that evil may not prevail.'

The Church has been embroiled in a series of sex abuse scandals, most recently in Germany where a damning report revealed over 3,700 children were abused between 1946 and 2014.

Flying back from a four-day tour of the Baltics on Thursday Francis insisted the Church should not be judged by modern standards because attitudes towards abuse, which he said happens not just in the Church but in society generally, have changed dramatically over the years.

'In olden times, these things were covered up, they were even covered up in homes, when an uncle raped a niece, when a father raped his children,' he said.

'It was covered up because it was an enormous shame. That was the mentality in the last century.'

Pope Francis arrives to lead his weekly general audience on St.Peter's square on Wednesday this week