AUSTRALIA
7 News
AAP
EHSSAN VEISZADEH
April 25, 2014
Abuse victims have slammed moves to make John Paul II a saint, accusing him of covering up sex crimes perpetrated by clergy from the Catholic Church for decades.
The late pontiff will on Sunday be canonised at a historic Vatican ceremony, with some 800,000 pilgrims expected in Rome.
But Sydney resident Nicky Davis, who was abused over a six-year period from the age of 12, says honouring John Paul II with the sainthood would be totally inappropriate.
Ms Davis is in Rome with other advocates from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to protest against the canonisation.
“How can you call a man a saint who didn’t take any action – and he had 27 years to do it,” she told AAP on Friday.
“He had the most powerful position in the world and he still didn’t act, with knowledge that large numbers of children were being raped by his priests.”
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