PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PHILADELPHIA — Pope Francis pledged to sexual-abuse survivors Sunday that bishops who fail to protect children from abusive priests, and not just the abusers themselves, “will be held accountable.”
The pontiff did not say what that accountability would entail in his prepared remarks for the private, long-anticipated meeting with five survivors of sexual abuse by priests or family members. He listened to the victims’ stories, prayed with them and pledged “we will follow the path of truth wherever it may lead.”
His spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said those details are being worked out but noted that the pope did form a commission to address such cases.
The meeting took place with three women and two men Sunday morning at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, where grand jury reports in 2005 and 2011 contained explosive revelations of systematic cover-ups of abusive priests by past archbishops and their staffs. A former archdiocesan official is currently incarcerated for his role in the cover-up.
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