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	Pope Talks to Abuse Victims In Unprecedented Meeting, Pontiff Hears Their Stories By Tracy Wilkinson and Rebecca Trounson Chicago Tribune April 18, 2008 http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/ WASHINGTON — In an unprecedented gesture, Pope Benedict XVI met privately Thursday with a small group of men and women who were sexually abused as youths by their clergy, an emotional encounter of prayer and tears. Participants said later that they experienced a long-overdue sense of "fulfillment." Inside the chapel of the Apostolic Nunciature, the pope spoke to the victims individually and as a group, and they prayed silently and then together, said Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. They described their personal stories to the pope, who offered them "words of encouragement and hope." Some wept. "His Holiness assured them of his prayers for their intentions, for their families and for all victims of sexual abuse," Lombardi said in a statement. Cardinal Sean O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston, who organized and attended the meeting, called it a moving experience. "It was very positive, healing, I think, and very prayerful," O'Malley said. The meeting was the most public papal acknowledgment to date of the victims' pain. Later, a person who said he attended the meeting told National Public Radio what the session meant to him. "For eight years, I've been asking to hear the words from the top, and from no one else," said Olan Horne. "And we heard them today. And we heard them face to face, without a filter, without a proxy. It wasn't symbolic. It was from him to me." And Bernie McDaid, who also said he was in the meeting, told NPR that he complained to the pope of a "cancer in your flock" and urged him to do more to eradicate it. The victims in Thursday's encounter, five or six men and women mostly in their 40s, were from the Boston area, the site of thousands of cases of rape and molestation by priests that eventually led to the forced retirement of the area's former archbishop, Cardinal Bernard Law. A prominent victims' organization, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Thursday's meeting was a "long-overdue step forward on a very long road." Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, speaking before the meeting, praised the pope's determination in confronting the issue of abuse. The pope, on the third day of his visit to the U.S., also celebrated mass with thousands of eager faithful at Nationals Park in Washington and later urged church educators to work to strengthen Roman Catholic identity in their schools and universities or risk "confusion" for the young. The pope later addressed representatives of non-Christian faiths and held a small, separate gathering with Jewish leaders in honor of the Passover holiday. Celebrating his first mass in the U.S., the 81-year-old pope told the crowd of 46,000 at Nationals Park that society needs an active, enthusiastic Roman Catholic Church. The pontiff, speaking from an altar in center field, said he was confident that the "profound harmony of faith and reason" will empower Catholics to confront urgent issues that shape the future of American society. The pope emphasized to educators that the church's teachings should shape "all aspects of an institution's life, both inside and outside the classroom." His audience included presidents of the nation's Catholic universities and school superintendents from its 195 dioceses. A former university professor, Benedict reiterated his earlier statements of support for academic freedom, calling it a "great value," but suggested it might also have limits at a Catholic college. "In virtue of this freedom you are called to search for the truth wherever careful analysis of evidence leads you," he told the educators at Catholic University of America. "Yet it is also the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission."
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