Vatican hosting four-day conference on how to deal with sex abuse
Administrators already had to borrow from diocesan funds to pay the 60-odd priests in the Waterford and Lismore area last September and had to raise money from parish reserves in December.
Now they are waiting for collection returns to see if there will be enough in the kitty for March.
There are three collections each year which are supposed to fund the priests’ salaries, held at Christmas, Easter and in autumn, but the amounts being raised have dwindled in recent years.
Waterford and Lismore spokesman Fr Liam Power said Pope Francis THE Vatican will gather senior bishops from around the world later this week for a conference on sex abuse.
The unprecedented four-day meeting, starting on Thursday, brings together presidents of national Roman Catholic bishops conferences, Vatican officials, experts and heads of male and female religious orders.
Fr Federico Lomardi, who Pope Francis has chosen to moderate the conference, said: “I am absolutely convinced our credibility in this area is at stake.
“We have to get to the root of this problem and show our ability to undergo a cure as a church that proposes to be a teacher or it would be better for us to get into another line of work.”
The Catholic Church has repeatedly come under fire for its handling of the sexual abuse crisis, which exposed how predator priests were moved from parish to parish instead of being defrocked.
The Pope called the meeting in September and last month he told reporters it was necessary because some bishops still did not know fully the procedures to put in place to protect young people and how to administer cases of abuse.