Listen Talk of Renewal but Few Decisions in Popes Irish Clergy Summit, Bob Oakes, WBUR, February 17, 2010

Listen: Talk of Renewal, but Few Decisions in Pope’s Irish Clergy Summit

By Bob Oakes
WBUR
February 17, 2010

http://www.wbur.org/2010/02/17/irish-clergy-sex-abuse

[with audio]

Cardinal Sean Brady, right, and Irish Bishop Joseph Duffy answer reporters' questions at the Vatican in Rome on Tuesday. Pope Benedict XVI urged Irish clergy to confront its abusive priest scandal but took no action on victims' demands that he force certain bishops to resign. (AP)

BOSTON — Pope Benedict XVI says he hopes this week’s meetings with Irish bishops at the Vatican to discuss the clergy sex abuse scandal in Ireland will eventually help to bring healing to those who have been abused.

But victims groups are calling the meetings a charade. The groups want further accountability and clergy resignations, including the resignation of former Boston Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law.

The summit follows two reports out of Ireland last year documenting decades of sexual and psychological abuse of children in Catholic-run schools and orphanages. The reports also said Catholic Church leaders in Dublin spent decades protecting child-abusing priests.

Paddy Agnew, the Vatican correspondent for The Irish Times, covered the meetings and spoke to WBUR Wednesday.

“There was a lot of talk of renewal, reconciliation, penitence, the sense that we know we’ve failed but we’ve got to regain credibility and the support of the Irish faithful,” Agnew said, “but it’s very short on hard-line decisions that you can point to.”