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He said he would not tolerate abuse, which has been exposed in recent years in many European, American and Asian dioceses. Bishops would be held accountable if they shielded them.
One prominent critic of the church’s long failure to act on the cases, and of the pope’s failure to meet victims earlier in his pontificate, said he must quickly follow up with clear action to prove the mass was not just a ceremonial event.
Francis delivered his homily to six victims of abuse, two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany, before meeting all individually at a gathering that lasted nearly four hours, spending about 30 minutes with each one.
“I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons,” he said, according to a Vatican transcript.
“Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness,” he said.
Sexual abuse scandals have haunted the Catholic Church for over two decades but became a major issue in the United States about 10 years ago. Since then they have cast a shadow over local churches in Ireland, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries and badly tarnished the Church’s image.
Monday’s meeting was closed to media but the Vatican spokesman, who participated, said it was ‘very intense and moving’.
“It was clearly not a public relations event. It was a very profound, spiritual encounter with a pastor, a father, who is trying to understand deeply what happened,” Father Federico Lombardi said.
The Vatican did not release the names and ages of the victims but they were believed to be in their 30s and 40s. One victim, Marie Kane, 43, of Ireland, told the Irish Times that she told the pope that ‘cover-up is still happening and you have the power to make these changes’.
The paper said she asked the pope to remove Cardinal Sean Brady because of his handling of an Irish abuse inquiry in 1975.
Victims groups have said the pope had a spotty record of dealing with abuse cases in Argentina when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, and victims from that country sent him a letter expressing ‘pain’ that they were not invited.
The Vatican says 3,420 credible accusations of sexual abuse by priests had been referred to the Vatican in the past 10 years and 824 clerics defrocked. The Church in the United States has paid $ 2.5 billion in compensation to victims.
