Victims of abuse ‘marginalised’
THE executive director of Amnesty International Ireland, Colm O’Gorman, has announced a counter-event to the Pope’s Phoenix Park Mass to highlight the plight of victims of clerical sex abuse.
The move comes as Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said that due to Pope Francis’ tight schedule, he might not be able to meet survivors of clerical abuse during his visit to Ireland.
However, a report in The Irish Times last night said that sources had indicated the Pope will meet abuse survivors during his trip.
Yesterday, in announcing the event, which is to be held in Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance on August 26, Mr O’Gorman said the Pope’s visit would be ‘full of pageantry and symbolism’ – but added: ‘It seems that this visit will also be marked by an effort to silence and marginalise those whom the church has harmed.’
Mr O’Gorman has spoken before about being abused by a priest when he was 14-years-old.
He previously sought a meeting with the Pope. Yesterday, he said: ‘We cannot stand by as those who suffered abuse are pushed to one side and denied. We cannot stand by and see the victims of the Church’s brutal history marginalised and dismissed. We cannot stay silent as the Vatican uses its power and pomp to forcefully deny the reality of the harm it has done. We will not stand by.’
Meanwhile, Marie Collins, an abuse survivor and campaigner, said that the Catholic Church doesn’t want to give any attention to the issue of abuse. Speaking to Miriam O’Callaghan on RTÉ Radio 1 yesterday, Ms Collins said that the Pope should meet abuse survivors in order to recognise what they went through. ‘I believe [the Pope] should meet survivors not just as a PR exercise but we know what has happened since then the last Papal visit,’ Ms Collins said.
‘The revelations have been horrific. He should be meeting representatives of the industrial schools, of the Magdalene laundries, of the mother and baby homes simply as a recognition of those horrors.’