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	Youth Day Suits a New Kind of 'Sorry' By Linda Morris Brisbane Times June 20, 2008 http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/youth-day-suits-a-new-kind-of-sorry/2008/06/19/1213770827365.html PRESSURE is mounting on the Pope to offer an apology during his visit to Sydney for World Youth Day, with leading specialists saying that the Pope's unequivocal condemnation of abuse would aid healing and that the children of the most devout church followers remained at risk. A conference into religious-based sexual abuse, organised by the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, will be told today that churches have failed to learn the lessons from massive compensation payouts. Professor Freda Briggs, emeritus professor of child development and a lecturer at the University of South Australia, said churches were disregarding the habitual nature of sex offenders and were welcoming back convicted clergy. Perpetrators had been able to groom children for sexual abuse partly because naive and trusting parents had allowed priests to share the same room and even the same bed as their sons, and had been easily flattered when priests chose their sons as altar boys. "Some church leaders don't seem to realise that pedophilia is not akin to a traffic offence or even robbing a bank; he may have paid his debt to society according to law but that doesn't mean that he won't reoffend. "There is no evidence to show that religion cures pedophilia - to the contrary - and the church's eagerness to following the teachings of Jesus and forgive offenders could prove to be yet another costly exercise placing it, and further children, at risk." Peter Jonkers, professor of philosophy at the faculty of Catholic theology at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, told the Herald it was appropriate that the Pope use the international forum of World Youth Day to strongly condemn sexual abuse. "It is important that the Pope does it. On a local level, the bishops or cardinals some way or another need to make contact with victims and survivors to recognise them." But Professor Jonkers, an advocate of forgiveness as a useful tool for personal recovery, cautions that for the Pope to repeat apologies wherever he next visits would be to eventually devalue the nature of an apology. Broken Rites, the Australian victim support group, wrote to the Vatican's representative in Canberra, Archbishop Giuseppe Lazzarotto, on June 7, requesting a private papal audience in Australia for a small group of victims. The Papal Nuncio has since assured the group in writing that the issue of an apology had been "presented to the attention and consideration of the competent office of the Holy See".
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