BishopAccountability.org

Pope begs for forgiveness over clergy sex abuse scandal

By Ruth Brown
New York Post
August 26, 2018

https://nypost.com/2018/08/26/pope-begs-for-forgiveness-over-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal/

Pope Francis

Pope Francis on Sunday begged forgiveness for child sexual abuse in the Catholic church — a day after a former Vatican official accused him of covering up allegations against an American cardinal.

Speaking at the Marian shrine in the Irish town of Knock, the pontiff said the “open wound” of the scandal required the church to be “firm and decisive in the pursuit of truth and justice.”

“I beg forgiveness for these sins and for the scandal and betrayal felt by so many others in God’s family,” he told the tens of thousands gathered at the shrine, according to the Guardian.

“None of us can fail to be moved by the stories of young people who suffered abuse, were robbed of their innocence and left scarred.”

His remarks come after a former Vatican ambassador to the US accused Francis himself of covering up the alleged abuses of former Archbishop of Washington, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

In a lengthy letter published Saturday in the National Catholic Register, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano claimed he’d told Francis in 2013 about allegations that the then-cardinal had slept with young seminarians — but the pope nevertheless chose to lift sanctions imposed on McCarrick by his predecessor, Pope Benedict.

Vigano, whose letter also rails against homosexuals and liberals in the church, doesn’t provide any evidence of the sanctions existing in the first place.

McCarrick resigned last month after a US church probe found accusations that he’d sexually assaulted a minor were “credible.”

Neither Francis not the Vatican has commented on Vigano’s claims.

Francis is scheduled to hold a mass in front of 500,000 Catholics in Dublin later Sunday — during his first visit to Ireland in 39 years — while abuse victims and their supporters will rally in the city center, AFP reports. 




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