The Catholic Church must plead for forgiveness for the crime of the abuse of minors by its members and everything must be done to prevent such “a disgrace” from ever happening again, Pope Francis said on Friday. Source: CNS.
He also called for clarity about the Church’s role from the 1940s to 1980s in coercing unwed mothers to give up their newborns.
“Today, in the Church, there is this crime” of abuse against minors, which the Pope compared to King Herod’s massacre of the innocents, during a speech to Belgian authorities and local representatives at the Castle of Laeken in Brussels.
“The Church must be ashamed, ask for forgiveness, try to resolve this situation with Christian humility” and do everything possible so “this will not happen again”, the Pope said at the first event on his first full day in Belgium.
He arrived late on Thursday after an eight-hour visit to Luxembourg.
The Pope’s day ended with him meeting at the nunciature with 17 survivors of abuse by clergy in Belgium.
“The participants were able to bring their stories and pain to the Pope and expressed their expectations regarding the Church’s commitment against abuse,” the Holy See press office later said in a statement.
The Pope thanked them for their courage in coming forward, expressed his feelings of shame for what they experienced and made note of their requests “so that he could study them”, the statement said.
The evening meeting, which was organised by the bishops’ conference, lasted more than two hours, taking place after the Pope returned from helping celebrate the 600th anniversary of the world’s oldest Catholic university, KU Leuven.
It also came after the Pope faced frank and direct requests for “relentless” action against abuse and for helping victims from the country’s prime minister and king during his morning meeting with Belgian authorities at the castle. “Words are not enough,” Prime Minister Alexander De Croo told the Pope.
Belgium is still reeling from ongoing evidence of decades of abuse and cover-up by Church officials after an independent inquiry report on abuse was published in 2010.
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Church should be ashamed, beg forgiveness for crime of abuse, Pope says (By Carol Glatz, CNS)
