LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet
August 5, 2019
By Ruth Gledhill
Pope Francis has spoken out about his concerns that Catholic priests are being “attacked and blamed” for crimes they did not commit. And he has warned them not to retreat into “closed and elitist” groups as a result because this “poisons the soul”.
In a letter to Catholic priests worldwide, he says he wants to encourage them as they live lives of service to others “in the trenches”, at a time when there is great public anger about the many clerical sex abuse scandals.
His letter was sent out on 4 August, the feast day of St John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests and Curé of Ars in France from 1818 to 1859
“Like the Curé of Ars, you serve ‘in the trenches’, bearing the burden of the day and the heat, confronting an endless variety of situations in your effort to care for and accompany God’s people. I want to say a word to each of you who, often without fanfare and at personal cost, amid weariness, infirmity and sorrow, carry out your mission of service to God and to your people. Despite the hardships of the journey, you are writing the finest pages of the priestly life,” he writes.
He describes how he shared with the Italian bishops his worry that, in more than a few places, “our priests feel themselves attacked and blamed for crimes they did not commit.”
The Church has become “more attentive” to the cry of victims of abuse. “This has been a time of great suffering in the lives of those who experienced such abuse, but also in the lives of their families and of the entire People of God.
The Church is committed to the reforms needed to encourage “a culture of pastoral care” so that the culture of abuse will have no room to develop, much less continue, he continues.
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