Pope seeks forgiveness of abuse victims at historic meeting

POPE FRANCIS has met victims of clerical sex abuse to beg forgiveness for the “sacrilegious” crimes committed by the “sons and daughters of the Church”.

The Pope on Monday told six victims of priestly abuse, including two Britons, that the Church would weep for its grave sin and must make amends for the suffering it has caused.

This was the first time Francis has officially met with abuse victims since becoming Pope, and in his strongest words on the subject so far, he promised that bishops who fail to report or cover up abuse will be held accountable.

At a Mass for victims at the Domus Sanctae Marthae where he lives, the Pope denounced the abuse of minors as “like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God”.

He met and listened to the ­stories of the six survivors who were included in the visit – three men and three women, two each from Ireland, the UK and Germany.

The meetings were intense and lasted more than three hours, an “extraordinary” length of time, according to Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi.

Later on Monday, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin addressed the Anglophone Conference in Rome, which brings together safeguarding experts from the English-­speaking Church. He said abuse “can and does still take place”.

Peter Saunders, chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood and a survivor, who met the Pope, said of the encounter: “I found it really moving and deeply encouraging.”

(See “The ripple effect”, page 6.)