“There has always been a desire to do more outreach to try and help victims come back to the church, or at least see the church being empathetic and sorrowful,” said Kathleen Chastain of the Office of Child and Youth Protection with the Diocese of Kansas City St. Joseph. “... We are trying to provide coverage throughout our geographical region and parishes where there has been a great deal of hurt.”

It will be the fifth of the services in the diocese since they began in August. The service will include prayer and symbolic candle lighting, said the Rev. Chuck Tobin of St. Mary’s. The Office of Child and Youth Protection, priests and licensed counselors also will be at the service to provide assistance as requested.

“It’s been overwhelmingly positive,” Ms. Chastain said of previous services. “At each one, although it follows the same script, has been unique and really has the feel of its parish. There’s been a lot of conversation afterward and just a lot of sharing. The words I remember hearing is ‘I needed to hear this,’ ‘I’m so glad we finally did this.’”

The locations for the services were selected to serve a wide geographical region within the diocese, and to reach parishes where “there has been a great deal of hurt,” Ms. Chastain added.

In 2010, officials found hundreds of lewd photos of young girls on the computer of Shawn Ratigan of Independence, Mo., which eventually lead to his arrest and five charges of child pornography. The Rev. Ratigan served at St. Mary’s parish during some of the time period when the photos were taken.

“It is an admission, not just of the church’s wrongdoing in the sense of one particular person or another, either a priest or other person who has done something wrong, but I think in general it is also just an awareness that abuse happens a lot in our society and that we are simply saying ‘look, we are in this together’ and that we ask a loving God to not only to forgive us but also to help all of us to begin to reach out to one another,” the Rev. Tobin said.

The prayer service will be 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 1606 N. Second St. It is open to the public.