This paper describes the transformations on the crisis-related discourse and its evolution within more than 4000 texts of the Vatican signed by the Popes spanning from mid 90s, published on the official webpage vatican.va in English. Text mining methodology reveals a shift in language and tone employed within these texts. The increased occurrence of the term 'crisis' and the emergent prevalence of inclusive pronouns was identified. The study focuses on the topics that, despite predominantly labelled as crises in public and media discourse, have not been labelled as such by the popes. This article deals with the communication strategies of the popes in response to cases of sexual abuse of minors by priests. How this sensitive topic is discussed in the official documents of the last three popes and how the discourse of the Holy See regarding sexual abuse is developing? The authors focus on the communication strategies used and on the naming of the situation and the expression of relationships with victims, representatives of the church, believers and the public. They point out how the heads of the Catholic Church applied elements of crisis communication in response to these controversial events. The analysis shows that the communication of the Popes of the Catholic Church regarding sexual abuse has been different. While John Paul II. avoided the topic in official communication, Benedict XVI linked it to the overall decline of faith, and Francis links sexual abuse to clericalism and abuse of power in the Church in general.