Pope’s Request for Abuse Victims to Forgive Church Draws Calls for Action

By Christine Hauser
New York Times
April 11, 2014

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/popes-request-abuse-victims-forgive-church-draws-calls-for-action/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=tw-thelede&seid=auto&_r=3&

Pope Francis said in remarks broadcast on Friday that he was “personally” asking for forgiveness for the damage that priests have done in the sexual abuse of children.

The Pope’s full statement — made as he met with members of the International Catholic Child Bureau, a nongovernmental organization — was transcribed by Vatican Radio.

An excerpt where he addresses the sexual abuse issue, apparently departing from his prepared speech:

I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children. The Church is aware of this damage, it is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the Church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed. On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children.

The remarks came just a few weeks after the Pope made his first appointments to a special commission intended to signal the Vatican’s new resolve in tackling the clerical sexual abuse problem.

The statement on Friday drew swift reaction on social media forums, where many said the church needed actions more than words to end the problem of priest abusing children.

Colm O’Gorman, the executive director of Amnesty International Ireland and the founder of One in Four, an organization that supports victims of sexual abuse, shared his thoughts on his Twitter account.