Cardinal Ouellet Meets Survivors of Abuse at Irelands' Famous Pilgrimage Site

By Gerard O'Connell
Vatican Insider
June 13, 2012

http://vaticaninsider.lastampa.it/en/homepage/the-vatican/detail/articolo/pedofilia-paedhophilia-pedophilia-irlanda-ireland-15966/


Speaking "in the name of the Church" he asked forgiveness for the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious in Ireland and elsewhere in the world

Cardinal Marc Ouellet met with a representative group of survivors of child abuse by priests and religious in Ireland at the famous pilgrimage site of Lough Derg associated with Saint Patrick, and asked forgiveness for the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious.

The victims included representatives of institutional and clerical abuse, both men and women, from different parts of the Ireland, north and south. During the two-hour meeting with the cardinal each survivor spoke of his or her own personal experience of abuse and the impact it had on their lives.

The Cardinal is representing Pope Benedict XVI at the 50^th International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin. At the pope's request, he travelled to Lough Derg, a small lake island in County Donegal near the border with Northern Ireland, and spent two days there (June 11-12), fasting and doing the traditional penitential exercises that pilgrims do, before meeting with the victims.

He was accompanied on the pilgrimage by the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Charles J. Brown, and the Bishop of Clogher, Liam MacDaid, who joined him in the penitential exercises.

After meeting the victims, he celebrated Mass in St Patrick's Basilica on the sacred island with around one hundred Irish and international pilgrims and, in his homily, revealed that Pope Benedict XVI had asked him to go to Lough Derg and there "to ask God's forgiveness for the times clerics have sexually abused children not only in Ireland but anywhere in the Church."

He said he came "with the specific intention of seeking forgiveness, from God and from the Victims, for the grave sin of sexual abuse of children by clerics".

Over the last decades, he said, "We have learned how much harm and despair such abuse caused to thousands of victims", and "that the response of some Church authorities to these crimes was often inadequate and inefficient in stopping the crimes, in spite of clear indications in the code of canon law."

Then speaking "in the name of the Church", he said, "I apologize once again to the victims, some of which I have met here in Lough Derg."

He repeated what Pope Benedict told victims in his Letter tothe Catholics of Ireland: "It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or to be reconciled with the Church. In her name I openly express the shame and remorse that we feel. At the same time, I ask you not lose hope. It is in the communion of the Church that we encounter the person of Jesus Christ, who was himself a victim of injustice and sin.'

He said "The tragedy of the sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by Christians, especially when done so by members of the clergy, is a source of great shame and enormous scandal" and "is a sin against which Jesus himself lashed out."

Cardinal Ouellet concluded by reaffirming the commitment of the Catholic Church "to create a safe environment for children" and prayed that "a new culture of respect, integrity and Christ like love would prevail in our midst and permeate the whole society."

Afterwards, he said he was "deeply moved" by his encounter with the survivors and would report back to Pope Benedict XVI on his return to Rome.