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	Pope and Church Leaders to Hold Talks on Abuse The Herald December 8, 2009 http://www.herald.ie/national-news/pope-and-church-leaders-to-hold-talks-on-abuse-1966836.html Ireland's Roman Catholic leaders will hold talks with Pope Benedict XVI in Rome this week to formulate the Vatican's response to the Murphy report on the 30-year child abuse cover-up by the Church. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Pope and his top officials would meet Cardinal Sean Brady and the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, on Friday. The meeting was called to discuss and evaluate "the painful situation of the Church in Ireland" following the publication last month of the Murphy Commission Report. The rank of the participants -- who will also include the Papal Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop Giuseppe Leanza, and top Vatican doctrinal officials -- effectively makes it a rare summit about the problem of sexual abuse of children in the Irish Church. There was no indication from the Vatican statement about what it could do to respond to the report, which said the Church's prominence in Irish life was one of the reasons why abuses by a minority of priests were allowed to go unchecked. One priest admitted abusing more than 100 children. Another said he had abused children every two weeks for over 25 years. The Pope has strongly condemned priestly sexual abuse during his trips to two countries hard hit by widespread scandals -- the US and Australia. But critics, such as victims' groups, have said the Vatican and the Church had not gone far enough in handing over suspected abusers to civil justice.
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