UNITED STATES
Road to Recovery

PRESS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE USE

Road to Recovery, Inc., which is the only organization in the United States that provides direct financial, social, advocacy, and other services to victim/survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic Church personnel and their enablers, responds to the Pope’s meeting today with survivors of clergy sexual abuse in the following way:

1) The meeting is a good first step for Pope Francis, but he must stop asking for forgiveness because forgiveness will only take place when Francis acts decisively. Some of the ways he can act are elicited below:

a) He must admit his missteps regarding clergy sexual abuse when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires in Argentina. In addition, he must acknowledge that one or more whistle blowers of clergy sexual abuse in Argentina were mistreated as a result of reports of sexual abuse of children by clergy and…