BOSTON (MA)
TheBostonChannel.com
BOSTON -- Cardinal Sean O'Malley plans to make a pilgrimage of "repentance and hope" to nine parishes where there has been an especially painful history of sexual abuse of children by priests.
In a letter sent this week to victims of clergy sexual abuse, O'Malley said he plans to begin a Novena to the Holy Spirit later this month, visiting nine churches across the five regions of the Boston archdiocese to offer special prayers for victims and to apologize for the priests and church officials who hurt children.
In Roman Catholicism, a novena is a nine-day prayer.
"The Novena services will acknowledge in a particular way the sins of clergy sexual abuse that violated the innocence of children and are an offense against God," O'Malley said in his letter.