VATICAN CITY
International Business Times
By Aaron Akinyemi
July 5, 2014
Pope Francis will meet victims who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of priests for the first time on Monday.
Six victims from Britain, Germany and Ireland will meet with the pontiff at his private residence, near St Peter’s Basilica, in the first such direct dialogue since the pope was elected last March.
The meeting will follow a mass at the pope’s private chapel, where he will to express his sympathy with tens of thousands of people abused by priests around the world.
In May, Pope Francis told journalists priests who molested children had performed the equivalent of a ‘satanic mass’, and said there must be ‘zero tolerance’ of paedophilia within the church.
Victims’ groups have long called on the Vatican to hold abusers to account, as well as bishops who shielded paedophiles or were negligent in protecting children.
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