WASHINGTON

The Devil didn’t make me do it.

The facts did.

Father Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist for the Holy See, said in Rome that The Times’s coverage of Pope Benedict, which cast doubt on his rigor in dealing with pedophile priests, was “prompted by the Devil.”

“There is no doubt about it,” the 85-year-old priest said, according to the Catholic News Agency. “Because he is a marvelous pope and worthy successor to John Paul II, it is clear that the Devil wants to grab hold of him.”

The exorcist also said that the abuse scandal showed that Satan uses priests to try to destroy the church, “and so we should not be surprised if priests too ... fall into temptation. They also live in the world and can fall like men of the world.”

Actually, falling into temptation is eating cupcakes after you’ve given them up for Lent. Rape and molestation of children is far beyond what most of us think of as succumbing to worldly temptation.