VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 4, 2016
VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis has not received a formal request for a meeting with Australian survivors of clergy sexual abuse while they are in Rome for a series of extraordinary government hearings with Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s chief spokesman said Friday.
Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi told reporters in a short briefing that both the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and one of the pope’s secretaries had told him they had not received any sort of request from Australian survivors.
About 15 survivors of clergy sexual abuse came to Rome from Australia this week to witness Pell, an Australian who serves as the head of the Vatican’s treasury, testify via video link Sunday-Wednesday to their country’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse.
Several of the survivors told reporters that they had made a request for a meeting with the pope on Monday, asking that any encounter be held before Friday, when they were flying home. The survivors provided a copy of a handwritten note they said they had faxed to the Vatican’s Prefecture of the Papal Household.
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