ABUSE VICTIMS’ LEADER: POPE’S MEETING A ‘GESTURE’
Pope Francis says his plan to meet with a group of sex abuse victims is part of an effort to “go forward” with “zero tolerance” in confronting and preventing clergy abuse. But the head of a U.S. victims’ group has dismissed the upcoming session as “another gesture, another public relations coup” that could prove meaningless.
The meeting with a half-dozen victims, announced Monday, is being organized by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston. It will mark the first such encounter for the pope, who has been criticized by victims for not expressing personal solidarity with them when he has reached out to other people who suffer.
“On this issue we must go forward, forward. Zero tolerance,” Francis said, calling abuse of children an “ugly” crime that betrays God. He said the meeting and a Mass at the Vatican hotel where he lives would take place early next month.
The Archdiocese of Boston said in a statement that the details of the meeting haven’t been finalized yet, and that O’Malley “looks forward to supporting this effort by Pope Francis in whatever manner will be most helpful.” The archdiocese said the meeting was expected to take place “in the coming months.”
David Clohessy, executive director of the main U.S. victims’ group, Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said the pope has shown himself to be capable of making real change in other areas such as church governance and finance but hasn’t done so in dealing with sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.
“The simple truth is this is another gesture, another public relations coup, another nice bit of symbolism that will leave no child better off and bring no real reform to a continuing, scandal-ridden church hierarchy,” he said.
Clohessy said the meeting “is just utterly, utterly meaningless.”
But a U.S. attorney who represents clergy abuse victims said he hoped the meeting would be “substantive and meaningful” rather than for cosmetic purposes.
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