Vatican summit sees abuse victim speak out

VATICAN CITY
The Province (Canada)

VATICAN CITY – Shunned by the Catholic Church for decades after being violated by a priest when she was just 13 years old, Irish victim Marie Collins described her traumatic experience at a Vatican summit.

“I had just turned 13 and was at my most vulnerable, a sick child in hospital, when a priest sexually assaulted me,” Collins said on Tuesday.

She had just been confirmed a Catholic when the young priest – a couple of years out of the seminary but “already a skilled child molester” – began visiting her in the evenings while she lay in a hospital bed in Dublin.

“When he began to sexually interfere with me, pretending at first, he was being playful, I was shocked and resisted, telling him to stop. He did not stop,” she said in front of the conference of bishops and cardinals.

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