On Monday, Pope Francis issued a letter to Catholics around the world about clerical sex abuse, begging forgiveness for the "suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power, and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons." He called for change to laws and Catholic culture and asked lay Catholics to help effect that change. The Vatican released the letter, a response to a grand jury report from Pennsylvania, as Francis heads to Ireland, which is grappling with its own abuses by the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis was pretty direct:
Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. ... The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. [Pope Francis]
The pope pointed to "clericalism," criticizing this ecclesiastical elitism as a "peculiar way of understanding the church's authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred." He expressed "shame and repentance" on behalf of priests and bishops, writing: "We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them." Pope Francis called for "penance and prayer" by all Catholics, saying fasting "can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary." You can read the entire letter via the Vatican.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Nick Fuentes’ Groyper antisemitism is splitting the rightTalking Points Interview with Tucker Carlson draws conservative backlash
-
Jamaicans reeling from Hurricane MelissaSpeed Read The Category 5 storm caused destruction across the country
-
Nigeria confused by Trump invasion threatSpeed Read Trump has claimed the country is persecuting Christians
-
Pope Leo canonizes first millennial saintSpeed Read Two young Italians, Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati, were elevated to sainthood
-
Southern Baptists endorse gay marriage banSpeed Read The largest US Protestant denomination voted to ban same-sex marriage and pornography at their national meeting
-
Prevost elected first US pope, becomes Leo XIVspeed read Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost is a Chicago native who spent decades living in Peru
-
Pope Francis dies at 88Speed Read 'How much contempt is stirred up at times toward the vulnerable, the marginalized and migrants,' Pope Francis wrote in his final living message
-
Pope returns to Vatican after long hospital staySpeed Read Pope Francis entered the hospital on Feb. 14 and battled double pneumonia
-
Texas megachurch founder charged with sex crimesSpeed Read Robert Morris, former spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, is accused of sexually abusing a child
-
Pope Francis suffers setback with respiratory episodesSpeed Read The 88-year-old pope continues to battle pneumonia
-
US Christianity's long decline has halted, Pew findsSpeed Read 62% of Americans call themselves Christian, a population that has been 'relatively stable' for the past five years
