The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Pope decries abuse cover-up, meets victims
DUBLIN » Pope Francis faced a lukewarm reception and scattered protests Saturday on his trip to Ireland, with even his vow to rid the church of the “scourge” of sexual abuse and his outrage at those “repugnant crimes” dismissed as an insult by Ireland’s wounded victims.
The abuse scandal — which has convulsed Ireland since the 1990s and has exploded anew in the U.S. — took center stage on the first day of Francis’ two-day trip to Ireland. The visit originally was intended to celebrate Catholic families but has been overshadowed by the renewed abuse crisis.
Francis sought to respond to the outcry by vowing to end sex abuse during a speech to Irish government authorities at Dublin Castle.
“The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests and others — to adequately address these repugnant crimes has rightly given rise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community,” he told them. “I myself share these sentiments.”
He cited measures taken by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, to respond to the crisis. But though Benedict is credited with cracking down on abusers, he never acknowledged the Vatican’s role in fueling a culture of coverup or sanctioned bishops for failing to protect their flocks.
Francis followed his promise with a half-hour meeting with eight survivors of both clerical and institutional abuse and prayed quietly before a candle lit for victims in Dublin’s cathedral. But neither his words nor the meeting with victims is likely to assuage demands for heads to roll over the abuse scandal.
“Disappointing, nothing new,” was the reaction from Irish abuse survivor Marie Collins, a former member of Francis’ sex abuse ad- visory panel who quit last year in frustration. She later took part in Francis’ meeting with seven other abuse survivors, including two priests and a public official.
Colm O’Gorman, who is leading a solidarity rally today in Dublin for abuse victims, said Francis’ remarks about sharing the shame felt by Catholics were an “insult to faithful Catholics, who have no reason to feel shame because of the crimes of the Vatican and the institutional church.”
The reception that Francis received in Dublin contrasted sharply with the raucous, rock star welcome that greeted St. John Paul II in 1979 in the firstever papal visit. No one from the public was at the airport or the roads nearby when Francis arrived Saturday.
At one protest, people tossed baby shoes to remind the pope of the poor treatment the Catholic Church doled out to the children of unwed mothers.
Crowds did throng Francis’ popemobile route and gathered outside Dublin’s cathedral, basking in the sunny weather.
Deeply Catholic Ireland has had one of the world’s worst records of clergy sex abuse, crimes that were revealed to its 4.8 million people over the past decade by government-mandated inquiries. The reviews concluded that thousands of children were raped or molested by priests or physically abused in churchrun schools — and Irish bishops worked for years to hide those crimes.
After the Irish church enacted tough new norms to fight abuse, it had been looking to the first visit by a pope in 39 years to show a different, more caring church.
More than 37,000 people — most of them young Catholics — signed up to attend a Vatican-sponsored World Meeting of Families that ends today in Dublin, more than twice the number of a rally in Philadelphia three years ago. And many did remain hopeful that Francis’ appearance would bring healing.