Sex Abuse Victims Respond to Pope Francis" Apology

By Katie Gibas
Time Warner Cable News
July 8, 2014

http://binghamton.twcnews.com/content/news/751365/sex-abuse-victims-respond-to-pope-francis--apology/

[with video]

Child sexual abuse victims around the world are responding to Pope Francis' apology this week. After meeting with several people who were abused by priests as children, Pope Francis begged for forgiveness for the church for failing to prevent the abuse. He also promised action to protect young parishioners, as well as to punish those who committed child sex abuse. But as Katie Gibas reports, while many church leaders are praising the Pope's statements, some survivors said words aren't enough.

Charles Bailey carried a dark secret with him for 40 years. At age 50, Bailey finally told someone he was abused by a Roman Catholic priest in the Syracuse Diocese in the early 1960's when he was in fifth and sixth grade.

"It's like your childhood is ripped from you in an instant. Up to that fall day when I was 10-years-old, I was a happy little kid with a big grin on my face. From that day forward, my childhood was gone. I didn't fit in with my peers. I was too young to fit in with the adults. You feel like you're solitary, alone, an outsider," said Charles Bailey, a child sexual abuse survivor.

He said telling his family and getting counseling helped him get the support he'd needed for 40 years to begin to recover. In 2007, he published his story in a book called "In the Shadow of the Cross." In addition to sharing what happened to him, he uses his writing as a way to help people manage their recovery.

"Come forward. Call somebody. Tell somebody. There's counseling out there. There's help out there. There's peer support out there. Just come forward. It's okay. You're not alone," said Bailey.

Earlier this week, Pope Francis met with victims of church sexual abuse. He apologized, begged for forgiveness and promised the perpetrators would be held accountable.

"It's the same rhetoric, just a different day. It's how bad we feel and how things should happen. Once again, there's no action being taken," said Bailey.

"To say nothing has been done, I completely disagree. Does more have to be done, certainly. I think what Pope Francis is doing by creating the panel that he's created, he's certainly delving in deeper to operations and so forth at the Vatican that I think we'll see changes. I think we have made significant strides and will not tolerate a child being harmed. I can speak for the Diocese of Syracuse. Priests have been removed. Victims have come forward. Victims have been treated with counseling and therapy and hopefully moving toward healing. That's going to take some time," said Danielle Cummings, the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese assistant chancellor.

The Syracuse Diocese said if the allegation is about current abuse, the cleric in question is removed from duties while it is investigated by law enforcement. If it's on case that's decades old, every time an allegation is made, the alleged abuser is again removed from duties while an outside investigation firm looks into the accusation, and if the accusation is believed to be credible, it is sent to the Vatican for a final ruling.

Bailey is also calling on lawmakers to abolish the statute of limitations for reporting and prosecuting child sexual abuse, because in his case, it took him 40 years to get the courage to tell someone what happened. He said it's still a crime, so the time frame shouldn't matter.