Marie has candid meeting with Pope

Bray People
July 13, 2014

http://www.independent.ie/regionals/braypeople/news/marie-has-candid-meeting-with-pope-30417481.html

Bray native Marie Kane met Pope Francis at the Vatican on Monday where they discussed her abuse.

Marie (43), who now lives in Carlow, was one of a group of six victims to meet the pope.

She asked him to allow priests marry and sack bishops who do not act on abuse in their diocese.

She said that the meeting was a very positive experience and a huge vindication for her, according to the Irish Independent.

'I am 11 years trying to get justice in some shape or form and it hasn't happened,' she told the newspaper, adding that the Pope 'seemed genuinely sorry.'
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She reported that he listened intently to what she had to say, at times seeming frustrated by what he was hearing.

'I was able to say what I wanted to say,' said Ms. Kane. Her abuse began in the Dublin archdiocese when she was 12, according to the Murphy Report.

Her abuser was taken out of ministry but not defrocked. 'There is still a long way to go,' said Ms. Kane. 'Until people like Sean Brady are gone, I will never believe that there is change and I said that to Pope Francis and he understood that. He heard what I said and understood where I was coming from.'

She gave the Pope letters written by herself and her children.

'Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you,' he said in a Mass following the meetings. 'And I humbly ask forgiveness. I beg your forgiveness, too, for the sins of omission on the part of church leaders who did not respond adequately to reports of abuse made by family members, as well as by abuse victims themselves.'