Pope Francis visits Ireland amid sex abuse scandal
![Pope Francis in Ireland](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/3hsaAokncLdK2GoWbXqWte-415-80.jpg)
Pope Francis arrived in Ireland Saturday, making the first papal visit to the traditionally Catholic country in four decades. He gave a speech at Dublin Castle, directly addressing the sexual abuse scandal currently engulfing the Catholic clerical hierarchy.
"I cannot fail to acknowledge the grave scandal caused in Ireland by the abuse of young people by members of the Church charged with responsibility for their protection and education," Francis said. "The failure of ecclesiastical authorities — bishops, religious superiors, priests, and others — to adequately address these repellent crimes has rightly given rise to outrage, and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community. I myself share those sentiments."
The pope will meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse later Saturday and will give a Mass for 500,000 at Dublin's Phoenix Park on Sunday before departure.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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