Pope Makes Strongest Apology for Child-sex Abuse

Gazzetta del Sud
April 11, 2014

http://www.gazzettadelsud.it/news/english/87528/Pope-makes-strongest-apology-for-child-sex-abuse.html


Vatican City, April 11 - Pope Francis on Friday issued his strongest apology yet for the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests. "I feel compelled to personally take on all the evil which some priests, quite a few in number, obviously not compared to the number of all the priests, to personally ask for forgiveness for the damage they have done for having sexually abused children," said the pontiff. Some have accused the reform-minded Argentinian pontiff of not being as vocal on the nagging paedophilia issue as he has in his much-publicised campaigns to help the poor and marginalised. Francis promised members of the International Catholic Child Bureau (BICE) that there would be no "step backwards" on punishing sex-abuse culprits and fighting the abuses which are one of his priorities amid a sweeping reform drive. The Vatican came in for sharp criticism from the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in a report earlier this year. The Holy See responded by saying the committee had not recognised efforts to stamp out paedophilia and had also strayed into doctrinal areas which were outside its remit. On Friday Francis stressed that the Catholic Church was aware of the damage done by predator priests. "It is personal, moral damage carried out by men of the Church, and we will not take one step backward with regards to how we will deal with this problem, and the sanctions that must be imposed. "On the contrary, we have to be even stronger. Because you cannot interfere with children," Francis told the BICE members at an audience at the Vatican. VICTIM, FOUR WOMEN NAMED TO NEW PANEL. On March 24 Pope Francis appointed a former child sex abuse victim as one of the first members of a new Vatican anti-abuse commission, a move intended to demonstrate resolve about confronting the child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked Catholicism. The pope tapped three clergy and five lay people from eight countries, with seven from Europe or the United States, including four women. The announcement came as Francis faced mounting criticism for a perceived blind spot on the abuse scandals, which have cost Catholic dioceses and religious orders around the world billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements. Among his appointees are Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, one of Francis' key advisers and the archbishop of Boston, where the US pedophile priest scandal erupted in 2002, and Marie Collins, who was assaulted as a 13-year-old by a hospital chaplain in her native Ireland and has gone on to become a prominent campaigner for accountability in the church. When she tried to report the abuse years later, said Collins, she was told by Church officials that "protecting the good name" of the priest was more important than remedying a

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