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	Pope's Letter 'Doesn't Address Concerns' Sydney Morning Herald March 21, 2010 http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/popes-letter-doesnt-address-concerns-20100321-qnkp.html IRELAND -- The Pope's letter expressing shame and remorse for the sexual abuse of children by priests in Ireland "falls far short" of addressing the concerns of victims, campaigners say. The One in Four group bemoaned the lack of an apology for the way victims were dismissed when they tried to complain to Church authorities, while Survivors of Child Abuse said the letter lacked "substance". "Victims were hoping for an acknowledgment of the scurrilous ways in which they have been treated as they attempted to bring their experiences of abuse to the attention of the Church authorities," One in Four's executive director Maeve Lewis said on Saturday. "The lack of an apology to them in this regard is hurtful in the extreme." The group said Pope Benedict XVI has wasted "a glorious opportunity" to address "the core issue in the clerical sexual abuse scandal: the deliberate policy of the Catholic Church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children". "There is nothing in this letter to suggest that a new vision of leadership exists," she said. John Kelly of Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), who himself was sexually abused as a boy in the notorious Daingean Catholic care home, told AFP that while he welcomes aspects of the letter, it leaves many questions unanswered. "Is the Pope now saying we will have a national inquiry into abuse in all the dioceses?" he said, referring to Benedict's assertion that priests and religious workers guilty of child abuse "must answer" for their crimes "before properly constituted tribunals". "Does he mean that those who committed the abuse and those who covered up have to surrender themselves to the police to face the criminal justice system?" Kelly asked. "In short, the basic question is; are the victims likely to get justice as a result of what the Pope has said?" Victim abuse campaigner Christine Buckley, who was abused by nuns in the Goldenbridge Industrial School in Dublin, said the pope should have specifically apologised to victims of institutional abuse in Ireland. "The whole issue of institutional abuse has been forgotten. We were the forgotten children," she said. About 165,000 children had passed through various childcare institutions funded by the state and run by the church. More than one billion euros ($A1.48 billion) in compensation had been paid out by a state redress board to about 15,000 survivors of the institutions, she said. "We suffered five layers of abuse; physical, sexual, mental, emotional and loss of identity coupled with slavery," Buckley said.
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