BOSTON (MA)
NECN
August 20, 2018
By Abbey Niezgoda
A Boston clergy sex abuse survivor and her lawyer are reacting after reading the letter from Pope Francis condemning the abuse and cover-up in the Catholic church. The letter was released by the Vatican Monday following a grand jury report that found more than 1,000 clergy abuse victims in parishes across Pennsylvania.
Alexa MacPherson said she was sexually assaulted for six years as a child by a priest in Dorchester. She said the letter is not just too late, it is not enough.
“There wasn’t anything concrete in that letter,” MacPherson said. “It was just we need to move forward, this is the past, we don’t want this to happen again. What are you doing?”
“With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them,” the letter said in part.
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