WEST CHESTER (PA)
The Daily Local
ADAM CIRUCCI, Staff Writer10/25/2005
WEST CHESTER -- About 50 area faithful gathered Monday evening at St. Agnes Church for a Mass of reconciliation and healing for the sexual-abuse scandal that recently shook the Catholic Church.
"I am very uncomfortable standing here. I usually am not," Monsignor Edward Deliman said during his homily. "It is a topic that I never thought I would have to speak about."
He described Monday’s Mass, a Eucharistic liturgy of reconciliation, as a call for the beginning of a healing process for the entire Church as a result of the sins of sexual abuse of children and minors committed by priests.
Still, Deliman emphasized that it is an invitation to begin, and that the actual reconciliation may be a long way in the future.
As the Mass began, Deliman and two other parish priests approached the altar and laid face-down in prostration for the remainder of the opening hymn.
Last month, a grand jury convened by Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham reported that leaders of the Philadelphia Archdiocese covered up sexual abuse by the clergy for two decades.