Pope's Personal Rep to Eucharistic Congress Meets Survivors of Clerical Sexual Abuse

The Journal
June 13, 2012

http://www.thejournal.ie/papal-legate-eucharistic-congress-clerical-abuse-survivors-sorry-485519-Jun2012/

Cardinal Marc Ouellet is the Papal Legate - the Pontiff's personal representative - at this year's Eucharistic Congress.

THE POPE'S PERSONAL representative to the International Eucharistic Congress has met with a group of survivors of clerical sexual abuse – and asked them for foregiveness for the abuse.

Cardinal Marc Ouellet met with the victims, from both sides of the border, during a two-day pilgrimage to Lough Derg.

After the meeting Ouellet celebrated Mass at St Patrick's Basilica where he said Pope Benedict XVI had asked him to come to Lough Derg and ask for God's forgiveness for any instance where someone had been abused anywhere in the Church.

"I come here with the specific intention of seeking forgiveness, from God and from the Victims, for the grave sin of sexual abuse of children by clerics," he said in his homily.

We have learned over the last decades how much harm and despair such abuse caused to thousands of victims.

We learned too that the response of some Church authorities to these crimes was often inadequate and inefficient in stopping the crimes, in spite of clear indications in the code of canon law… In the name of the Church, I apologise once again to the victims, some of which I have met here in Lough Derg.