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Pope begs forgiveness and vows to pursue justice in abuse scandal Pope begs forgiveness and vows to pursue justice as Ireland trip ends
(about 5 hours later)
Pope Francis has said the church must be “firm and decisive in the pursuit of truth and justice” as the issue of sexual and institutional abuse continued to dominate his fraught two-day trip to Ireland. Pope Francis has made a powerful and emotional plea for forgiveness in front of a crowd of 500,000 people in Dublin at the closing event of a fraught two-day trip to Ireland which has been dominated by the issue of sexual and institutional abuse.
Speaking at the Marian shrine in Knock in the west of Ireland, the pope begged for forgiveness for the “scandal and betrayal” felt by victims of sexual exploitation by Catholic clergy. During his 36-hour visit, the pontiff was forced repeatedly to address the decades-long scandal that has had a catastrophic impact on the church’s reputation and moral authority in Ireland and elsewhere.
“None of us can fail to be moved by the stories of young people who suffered abuse, were robbed of their innocence and left scarred,” Francis told tens of thousands at the shrine on Sunday morning. The most significant statement came in the form of a penitential prayer said at mass in Phoenix Park, the highlight of the trip. The pope listed specific forms of abuse, including sexual crimes, vulnerable women being forced by nuns to undertake manual labour, and forced or coerced adoptions. Each request for forgiveness was welcomed with applause from the crowd.
“This open wound challenges us to be firm and decisive in the pursuit of truth and justice. I beg forgiveness for these sins and for the scandal and betrayal felt by so many others in God’s family,” he said. The pope’s plea came as a retired Vatican diplomat demanded Francis’s resignation, claiming he had failed to act on abuse allegations against a prominent figure in the church hierarchy.
On arrival at Knock international airport, built privately to service the 1.5 million annual pilgrims to the shrine, Francis was greeted by hundreds of schoolchildren, whose excitement was undiminished by the mist and rain. There was a “conspiracy of silence not so dissimilar from the one that prevails in the mafia”, archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, 77, said in a highly charged 11-page testament. He claimed Francis knew Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, “was a corrupt man, [but] he covered for him to the bitter end”.
At the shrine, built on the site of a reported apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879, he spent some moments in private reflection before leading Angelus prayers. Vigano’s testament followed a wave of revelations, reports and resignations to hit the Catholic church in recent months, which threatens to engulf Francis’s papacy and has provided ammunition for his enemies in the Vatican.
He then returned to Dublin, where he will celebrate mass in front of half a million people in Phoenix Park, before flying back to Rome on Sunday evening. Celebrating mass in Phoenix Park, Francis said: “We ask forgiveness for the abuses in Ireland, abuses of power, of conscience, and sexual abuses perpetrated by members with roles of responsibility in the church.
The visit, the first to Ireland by a pope since John Paul II in 1979, has been overshadowed by the issue of abuse by clerics and institutions of the church, and its cover-up by bishops and other senior figures. “In a special way, we ask pardon for all the abuses committed in various types of institutions run by males or female religious and by other members of the church, and we ask for forgiveness for those cases of manual work that so many young women and men were subjected to. We ask for forgiveness.
Protests were planned to coincide with the papal mass on Sunday afternoon. In Dublin, survivors of sexual abuse and their supporters will gather at the Garden of Remembrance. In Tuam, in the west of Ireland, a vigil will be held at the site of a mass grave discovered at a mother-and-baby home, which contained the remains of almost 800 infants. “We ask forgiveness for the times that, as a church, we did not show the survivors of whatever kind of abuse the compassion and the seeking of justice and truth through concrete actions.
There may also be protests inside Phoenix Park, although the Gardaí have banned placards or banners. “We ask for forgiveness for some of the church hierarchy who did not take charge of these situations and kept quiet.
On Saturday, Francis met eight survivors of abuse in a private meeting that lasted 90 minutes. “We ask for forgiveness for all those times in which many single mothers were told that to seek their children who had been separated from them – and the same being said to daughters and sons themselves – that this was a mortal sin. This is not a mortal sin. We ask for forgiveness.”
Paul Redmond, who was born in a Catholic mother and baby home, said the pope had described the cover-up of abuse as “caca”, or excrement. Ending the prayer, Francis said: “Give us the strength to work for justice. Amen.”
Survivors handed a letter to the pope, in English and in Spanish, telling him that 100,000 mothers were forcibly separated from their babies in Ireland, and were told it was a “mortal sin” to try to contact their children. Despite the long shadows cast over the visit, hundreds of thousands of people gave Francis a rapturous welcome at events in Dublin and at the Marian shrine in Knock in western Ireland on Sunday. A 3,000-strong choir and orchestra performed in Phoenix Park as Francis toured the waving crowds.
“As an act of healing, Pope Francis, we ask you to make it clear to the elderly and dying community of natural mothers and adoptees, that there was no sin in the reunion. It should be encouraged and facilitated by the Catholic church,” their letter said. As well as Irish Catholics, including thousands who travelled from Northern Ireland for the event, the crowd in Dublin included about 20,000 pilgrims from all over the world attending the Catholic church’s World Meeting of Families, a global gathering held every three years.
Francis disappointed campaigners by failing to address their demands for concrete action against bishops and others who have facilitated or concealed abuse when he delivered a speech at Dublin Castle on Saturday. The crowd was, however, far smaller than the 1.25 million who came to see Pope John Paul II celebrate mass in Phoenix Park in 1979, and aerial shots showed large empty spaces. Strong winds and heavy rain on Sunday morning may have been a deterrent.
He restated previous acknowledgement of the “grave scandal” of abuse. “The failure of ecclesiastical authorities – bishops, religious superiors, priests and others – adequately to 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,” he said. Jim and Betty O’Neill were celebrating their 52nd wedding anniversary at the mass with their two grandchildren, having set off from Belfast at 7am. “Pope Francis is very humble. I’ve been very impressed by his demeanour. I have an awful lot of time for him,” said Jim O’Neill, 72.
Leo Varadkar, the taoiseach, called for a new relationship between church and state in which religion was no longer at the centre of society. “I would have loved him to have come north. A lot of people there are very disappointed, but it’s great to be here,” he said.
He said the time had come “for us to build a new, more mature relationship between church and state in Ireland – a new covenant for the 21st century”. Saoirse Mooney, 15, from Balmaley, said she was proud to be a Catholic. She thought Pope Francis was “a very nice man, he seems to be all he’s cracked up to be.”
It would be one “in which religion is no longer at the centre of our society, but in which it still has an important place”, he said. As Francis led people in prayer, survivors held protests elsewhere. Thousands of people turned out in support in Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance, and a vigil was held at the site of a mass grave discovered at a mother-and-baby home in Tuam, which contained the remains of almost 800 infants.
Meanwhile, a retired Vatican diplomat has accused Pope Francis of being aware of abuse allegations against a former archbishop of Washington from 2013 but failing to take action. Survivors of abuse had been determined to ensure that the pope left Ireland with a deeper understanding of the trauma they have suffered and their visceral anger at the church’s complicity and cover-up.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 77, known for his conservative views, claimed he had an exchange with the pope in June 2013, three months after Francis was elected, in which he said there was a thick dossier on Theodore McCarrick. He said the pope did not respond, and McCarrick continued in his role as a public emissary for the church. The papal visit to a country where Catholicism was once ingrained in the national psyche but which has changed almost beyond recognition in recent years had uncomfortable moments.
In an 11-page testament, Viganò also named other cardinals and archbishops whom he said knew about the McCarrick claims. “Corruption has reached the very top of the church’s hierarchy,” he wrote. Francis heard Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, call for a new relationship between church and state in which religion was no longer at the centre of society in a speech delivered at Dublin Castle on Saturday.
He said: “Although [Francis] knew that [McCarrick] was a corrupt man, he covered for him to the bitter end.” He also spent 90 minutes meeting with eight abuse survivors on Saturday. After hearing their accounts, Francis described the cover-up of abuse as “caca”, or excrement, according to one of those present.
Last month, Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation as a cardinal after fresh claims he sexually abused an 11-year-old altar boy and seminary students. McCarrick has maintained his innocence. Marie Collins, another of the survivors who met Francis, said he had told the group he was not planning new measures to hold bishops who cover up abuse to account.
Viganò – a former ambassador to the United States – called for Francis to step down, saying: “In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example to cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.” “In answer to [my] question of setting up a tribunal and what sort of concrete measures there’s going to be, it would appear that there’s not going to be anything more,” Collins, who last year resigned from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, told National Catholic Reporter.
The publication of the testament – which also contains a lengthy attack on homosexuality in the Catholic church – is another sign of growing rancour and divisions within the Vatican and top levels of the church over Francis’s papacy. “The pope said there are already tribunals being held and bishops are being held accountable before them.”
Collins said she also asked Francis why the church allowed disgraced prelates to resign instead of being sacked. Bishops should not be permitted to “just walk away and resign, as if it was by choice”, she said.
At his last meeting before leaving for Rome, Francis returned to the theme of abuse. “A recurrent theme of my visit, of course, has been the church’s need to acknowledge and remedy, with evangelical honesty and courage, past failures with regard to the protection of children and vulnerable adults,” he told bishops at the Convent of the Dominican Sisters.
“In these years, all of us have had our eyes opened to the gravity and extent of sexual abuse.”
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