ROME
The Guardian
Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Monday 28 September 2015
Pope Francis has said he understands why some victims of clerical sex abuse and their families could not forgive the church for the suffering they faced, saying such abuse was “almost a sacrilege”.
In remarks during a 47-minute press conference on his flight back to Rome after a tour of the US, the pope also sought to clarify controversial remarks he made to American bishops, when he congratulated them on their “courageous” handling of the sex abuse crisis.
He said he wanted to “express my compassion to them because a terrible thing happened and many of them have suffered because they did not know and when it came out they suffered a great deal.
“It’s a terrible thing and the words of comfort were not to say: ‘Don’t worry that was nothing’ … no, no, no. But it was so bad that I imagine that you cried hard … that was the sense of what I meant,” he said, according to a transcript.
The pope also suggested a Kentucky clerk’s recent refusal on religious grounds to issue marriage licences to gay couples was a question of religious freedom, saying conscientious objection was a “human right”. Kim Davis’s act of defiance became national news, with some conservatives comparing her act to civil disobedience endorsed by Martin Luther King in the civil rights era.
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