Before Pope’s Farewell Mass, Visits With Bishops and Inmates, by Daniel J. Wakin, New York Times (September 27, 2015)

PHILADELPHIA — Speaking to hundreds of bishops and seminarians, Pope Francis on Sunday said he met in private with a group of victims of clergy sexual abuse and he pledged that “all responsible will be held accountable.”

“God weeps for the sexual abuse of children,” he said.

The pope, speaking on the last day of his trip to the United States, delivered his words before his prepared speech. He said survivors of abuse by priests “have become true heralds of mercy. Humbly, we owe each of them our gratitude for their value as they have had to suffer terrible abuse.”

In several references to the scandal during his trip, the pope drew criticism for seeming more concerned about the scandal’s effect on the clergy than the victims.

He told clergy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York: “You have suffered greatly in the not distant past by having to bear the shame of some of your brothers who harmed and scandalized the church in the most vulnerable of her members.” He added: “I accompany you at this time of pain and difficulty.”

But on Sunday, he said he committed himself “to a careful oversight to ensure that youth are protected and that all responsible will be held accountable.”

Before his remarks, the pope met with three women and two men, all adults who had suffered abuse as children, said the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. The pope heard their stories and spoke to the group, then met with each survivor individually, praying with them and expressing “his own pain and shame” at how they had suffered, Father Lombardi said.

Each of the survivors was accompanied by a family member or support person. Also in attendance were Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston and chair of the commission set up by the pope for the protection of minors, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, as well as an auxiliary bishop who is in charge of the office for the protection of minors in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the nation’s most prominent support and advocacy group for victims of clergy sexual abuse, dismissed the pope’s actions. “Is a child anywhere on earth safer now that a pope, for maybe the seventh or eighth time or ninth time, has briefly chatted with abuse victims? No,” said the group’s director, David Clohessy.

He called the pope’s encounter with victims “a smart public relations move. That’s what this meeting is. Nothing more.”

Francis started his day with a visit to St. Charles Borromeo Seminary to address bishops taking part in the World Meeting of Families. As he has for much of the weekend here in Philadelphia, he delved into related matters — marriage, young people, friendship, relationships. Here, he wrestled with how “unprecedented changes” in society has affected family ties.

Francis adapted his critique of a consumer society, one of the themes he most forcefully pushes and that draws some of the sharpest criticism from free-marketers, to modern conceptions of family. He compared it to a supermarket: “The world seems to have become one of these great supermarkets; our culture has become more and more competitive,” he said. “Today’s culture seems to encourage people not to bond with anything or anyone, not to trust.”

“We have turned our society into a huge multicultural showcase tied only to the taste of certain ‘consumers,’” he said. “Running after the latest fad, accumulating ‘friends’ on one of the social networks, we get caught up in what contemporary society has to offer.”

Francis urged the bishops not to dismiss young people as “hopelessly timid, weak, inconsistent.”

Francis adapted his critique of a consumer society, one of the themes he most forcefully pushes and that draws some of the sharpest criticism from free-marketers, to modern conceptions of family. He compared it to a supermarket, rather than the friendly corner store: “The world seems to have become one of these great supermarkets; our culture has become more and more competitive,” he said. “Today’s culture seems to encourage people not to bond with anything or anyone, not to trust.”

Francis also lamented how young people are delaying marriage. Departing from the text, the Argentine pope drew chuckles, when he recounted exchanges he has had back home.

In Buenos Aires, he said, many women tell him, “My son is 30 or 34 years old and my son isn’t getting married, What do I do?” And he responds, “Don’t iron his shirts anymore.”

And then he seemed to take on Facebook. Or at least social media.

He said society also resembled a “huge multicultural showcase” based on consumer tastes.

“Running after the latest fad, accumulating ‘friends’ on one of the social networks, we get caught up in what contemporary society has to offer,” said Francis, who posts on Twitter as @pontifex.

Francis urged the bishops not to lament the good old days and dismiss young people as “hopelessly timid, weak, inconsistent.”

Toward the end of his speech, Francis tied in priestly celibacy to the theme of family, saying, “A good pastor renounces the love of a family precisely in order to focus all his energies” on ministering to his flock.

Francis later went to the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, mainly an intake jail, which has roughly 2,800 inmates and is one of six jails in Philadelphia’s system. Some of the inmates have made Francis a hand-carved chair.

“It is painful when we see prison systems, which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities,” he said.

Prison ministry has long been a characteristic of the pope, who has often said it is important to pay attention to those on the margins of society.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio visited inmates frequently. As pope, he had lunch with inmates in a jail near Naples this year, and washed the feet of inmates at the Rebibbia prison in Rome in a Holy Thursday ritual in April. He did the same during his first year as pope, in 2013, at a juvenile detention center in Rome. He also visited prisoners during the last day of his trip to Bolivia in July.

His last event will be a Mass downtown, on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, that is expected to attract one million people. He leaves for Rome in the evening.

Pope Francis Condemns Abuse