NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

February 15, 2018

By Gerard O’Connell

Pope Francis “normally” meets with victims of abuse on Fridays, and “sometimes this is known and sometimes it is not known,” he revealed in a Jan. 19 conversation with Peruvian Jesuits in Lima, Peru.

He said it is “terrible” if even one priest abuses a minor, “for God anointed him to sanctify children and adults, and instead of making them holy he has destroyed them. It is horrible!”

He insisted that “we need to listen to what someone who has been abused feels,” and he revealed that he had done so in Chile. “As their process is very hard, they remain annihilated. Annihilated!” he said.