Pope ashamed of church abuse
The failure of ecclesiastical authorities to address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.
Pope Francis
dublin — Pope Francis marked the first papal visit to Ireland in 39 years by acknowledging that the failure of Church authorities to adequately address “repugnant” clerical child abuse crimes there remains a source of shame for the Catholic community.
Francis arrived on Saturday for a highly charged visit to a society transformed since more than three-quarters of the population flocked to see Pope John Paul II in 1979 and beset by the kind of abuse scandals that have once more mired the Catholic Church in crisis.
“I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education,” Francis told a state reception attended by some abuse survivors.
“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — adequately to address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community.” One of the abuse survivors present, Colm O’Gorman, called the pope’s remarks a staggering effort at deflection that failed to acknowledge the Vatican’s role in covering up the crimes.
“It was quite shocking actually in some ways,” O’Gorman, a leading abuse campaigner, told national broadcaster RTE.
Today, Ireland is no longer the staunchly Catholic country it was in 1979 when divorce and contraception were illegal and over the past three years, voters have approved abortion and gay marriage in referendums, defying the will of the Church.
Francis asked that Ireland would not forget “the powerful strains of the Christian message” that have sustained it in the past, and can continue to do so in the future.
Numbers lining the streets or joining the pope in prayer are expected to be about a quarter of the 2.7 million who greeted John Paul II, marking how the rock that was once Irish Catholicism has eroded since child abuse cases came to light in the 1990s.
Francis began the two-day trip by visiting Irish President Michael D. Higgins’ who said he raised with the pope the immense suffering caused by child sex abuse and anger which had been conveyed to him. —