BishopAccountability.org
	Pope Meets Bishops over Abuse Scandal Sydney Morning Herald February 16, 2010 http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/pope-meets-bishops-over-abuse-scandal-20100216-o375.html Pope Benedict XVI has opened talks with Irish bishops in a bid to win back trust after shocking revelations that Catholic church authorities covered up for pedophile priests. The Pope and about two dozen Irish bishops went behind closed doors to discuss the fallout from the latest of a series of such scandals to rock the church, which the Vatican described on Monday as a "hard and humiliating challenge". The Irish delegation was led by Cardinal Sean Brady, primate of all Ireland, who met in December with Benedict along with Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Vatican experts said the level of attention to the crisis - with two meetings scheduled on Monday and a third on Tuesday - was unprecedented. The crisis in mainly Catholic Ireland erupted in November with the publication of two shocking judicial reports. One priest admitted to sexually abusing more than 100 children, while another accepted he had abused minors on a fortnightly basis over 25 years. Repeated revelations of pedophile priests have rocked the church in recent months following major scandals in the United States and Australia. The Irish scandal is a "hard and humiliating challenge", Vatican Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone said during a mass before Monday's talks. "Challenges that come from within (the church) are naturally harder and humiliating," Bertone said in his homily. "Every kind of challenge can become a reason for purification and sanctification as long as it is illuminated by faith." "Such is the serious challenge facing your communities, which see men of the church involved in particularly execrable acts," he said. Four bishops tendered their resignations over the scandal, but only that of former Limerick bishop Donald Murray, who was deputy bishop of Dublin from 1982 to 1996, was effective as of the Vatican visit. One of the four, James Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin, was at the talks on Monday. Brady told Radio Vatican the meetings had been "very carefully" prepared and were "but one step on a very long road". He added: "When we return home, we hope this will launch a process of repentance, renewal and reconciliation for everyone's good." The Vatican said Benedict planned to issue a pastoral letter to Ireland's Catholics over the scandal. The letter will be aimed at "restoring confidence" among Irish Catholics and to offer "concrete and effective" ways to prevent a recurrence of priestly pedophilia, a Vatican expert wrote in the leading Italian daily, Corriere della Sera. But an Irish anti-abuse campaigner said the Pope should visit Ireland and meet personally with victims of pedophile priests as he did in the US and Australia. Christine Buckley, an abuse survivor herself, said on Irish radio the pontiff should apologise in Ireland to "victims of institutional and clerical abuse, given that many of the (Irish) abusers went to countries such as Australia, such as America, where they continued their abuse". The Pope plans to visit Britain in September.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.