The Catholic Church’s inability to make victims of sexual abuse its top concern is a cause for intense shame, Pope Francis said.
In the wake of a major report investigating the extent of sexual aggression and abuse against minors in the church in France, the Pope said, “I wish to express to the victims my sadness, my grief, for the traumas they have endured, and also my shame.” This deep sense of shame, “our shame, my shame,” he said, was for “the too lengthy inability of the church to put (victims) at the center of its concerns.”
The pope made his remarks at his general audience in the Vatican’s Paul VI hall, in the presence of a group of bishops and a cardinal from France who had been in Rome for their “ad limina” visit. Just before the audience, the Pope and four of the bishops gathered privately for a moment of silent prayer for victims.
After delivering his main catechesis, the pope highlighted a recent report published by an independent body commissioned by the French bishops’ conference.
According to the four-year investigation, an estimated 216,000 children were abused by priests since 1950, and more than 100,000 others were abused by lay employees of church institutions.
This history of unchecked abuse extending over the course of generations challenges our comprehension of how innocent persons could have suffered so terribly
The Pope commented on the “considerable number” of known victims revealed in the report.
Assuring victims of his prayers, the pope asked everyone to pray with him: “To you, Lord, the glory; to us, the shame. This is the moment of shame.” He encouraged the country’s bishops and superiors general of religious orders “to continue to do their utmost so that similar tragedies are not repeated.”
Pope Francis also expressed his closeness to the priests in France, assuring them of his “paternal support before this ordeal, which is arduous but beneficial.”