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	Mgr Scicluna to Meet Child Abuse Victims di-ve April 16, 2010 http://www.di-ve.com/Default.aspx?ID=43&Action=1&NewsId=71557 Mgr Charles Scicluna, the promoter of justice in the Holy See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has accepted a request made by 10 victims of alleged child abuse at St Joseph’s Home, Santa Venera, to meet him. The meeting with the monsignor, the Vatican’s top official responsible for dealing with sexual and physical abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy, is set to be held in June. “This is very good news for us. It shows that the Maltese church and now the Vatican are now taking our case and our pain seriously. We had approached the local church's Response Team in 2003 but, unfortunately, we did not get justice then. We sincerely hope that, through this meeting with Mgr Scicluna, we get it now. At the same time, we continue to insist on getting civil and criminal justice from our court. We have been waiting for 7 years for our case to end but justice has not been done yet,” one of the victims choosing to identify themselves, Lawrence Grech, said. “We are very happy that our cries are now being heard by the church authorities, locally and at the Vatican. We are also very grateful that this good news is coming on the eve of Pope Benedict's XVI visit to Malta. All of us welcome the Pope to Malta with open arms and augur that his visit will leave the desired results,” another victim, Joseph Magro, added. The meeting was the second request made by the victims which has been accepted. The first, a meeting with Archbishop Paul Cremona behind closed doors, already took place, with victims maintaining that it was very emotional and went very well. The archbishop offered to meet the victims and their families again in the future, an offer which was accepted. The abuse victims are still waiting for a response to their request to meet for a few minutes with the pope behind closed doors, and have also asked the pope to specifically refer to Maltese victims of abuse in his public declarations during his visit.
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