VATICAN CITY — Confronting a sex abuse scandal spreading across Europe, including his native Germany, Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday apologized directly and personally to victims and their families in Ireland, expressing “shame and remorse” and saying “your trust had been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.”
His message, in a long-awaited, eight-page pastoral letter to Irish Catholics, seemed couched in strong and passionate language. But it did not refer directly to immediate disciplinary action beyond sending a special apostolic delegation to investigate unspecified dioceses and religious congregations in Ireland. Moreover, it was, as the Vatican said it would be, focused particularly on the situation in Ireland, even as the crisis has widened among Catholics in Ireland, Austria, the Netherlands and Germany.
“You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated,” the pope told Irish victims and their families.
“Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen. Those of you who were abused in residential institutions must have felt that there was no escape for your sufferings,” he continued. - Read more - by RACHEL DONADIO and ALAN COWELL – The New York Times
Father Hans Kung blames Catholic views on sex for clerical child abuse – by Ruth Gledhill – Mar 9, 2010 - Times Online - Read more
Pope letter on Catholic sex abuse scandal meets Irish skepticism - Christian Science Monitor - Read more
Pope's Irish letter faces critical Catholic world - By Shawn Pogatchnik - Associated Press Write – Boston.com – Read more
Merkel demands "truth and clarity" on abuse scandal – Reuters – Read more
Full Disclosure - The Roman Catholic Church must confront its failings with contrition – TimesOnline – Read more
Catholic Church sex abuse scandals around the world – BBC News – Read more
This about the reckless endangerment of children in a calculated, purposeful strategy to protect the institutional Church - By Jason Walsh – December 2, 2009 - The Christian Science Monitor – Read more
New Catholic Sex Abuse Findings: Gay Priests Are Not the Problem – by DAVID GIBSON – Politics Daily - November 18, 2009 - Read more
Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation, Dr. Gregory Herek, University of California at Davis & Yale University & City University of New York – Read more
RC hierarchy child sexual abuse “cover-ups” ordered by Benedict XVI to avoid public outrage & criminal charges - falsely accused gay priests WATERGATE? Read more
Ratzinger, Hurley, Maida & Accomplices - Kids Are Being Hurt!!! (Sequential Order of Reactions) Read more"Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well-considered, and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child's spirit." Erik Erikson
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