UNITED STATES
Washington Post
Activists urge Pope Francis to address sex abuse by clergy during U.S. visit
By Michelle Boorstein August 13
PHILADELPHIA — John Salveson didn’t give up his obsession with the Catholic Church easily. There were polite letters in the early 1980s, asking that the priest who molested him when he was a teenager be removed.
His bishop wrote back, but the priest remained, transferring parishes through the late ’80s, according to a grand jury report. “Sincerely yours in Christ,” the bishop closed his letters.
Later, Salveson led a group that advocated for church reform. But by the mid-2000s, he had grown discouraged and shifted his focus to pushing for stronger laws and enforcement.
Prompted by Pope Francis’s trip to Philadelphia this fall, Salveson has renewed his activism toward the church, calling for the pontiff and other participants in a global Catholic meeting on family issues to discuss child sex abuse by clergy members and wear black ribbons to represent “the darkness that infects the souls of survivors,” he said.
The official itinerary for Francis’s U.S. trip includes no mention of the topic, although some experts think the pontiff will address it in an impromptu way, as Pope Benedict did during his last trip to the United States, in 2008.
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