Source: New York Times, Associated Press, AP, Reuters, AFP, Der Spiegel, BBC
Victims of abuse by Catholic priests and nuns in Ireland and elsewhere expressed deep disappointment over an eagerly anticipated pastoral letter released Saturday by the Vatican after weeks of consultation with Irish bishops.
In the letter, which was to be read at all Catholic churches in the country, Pope Benedict XVI apologizes to victims of abuse and rebukes Ireland’s church leaders for “grave errors of judgment” in failing to observe the church’s secretive canon laws, Associated Press reports.
In the long-awaited, eight-page pastoral letter, the pope said to abuse victims,“You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.”
“Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen,” the pope wrote.
He added, “I know some of you find it difficult even to enter the doors of a church after all that has occurred.”
But Benedict did not ask for resignations from Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Irish church, or any other member of the Irish hierarchy and did not not require that Roman Catholic leaders be disciplined for past mistakes as some victims were hoping, New York Times reports.
Nor did the pope indicate that the Irish abuse cases reveal deeper problems with church rules.
“My first response was deep disappointment in the letter,” said Maeve Lewis, executive director of victims group One in Four. “We feel the letter falls far short of addressing the concerns of the victims,” Lewis told Reuters.
Lewis said that the pope wasted “a glorious opportunity” to address “the core issue in the clerical sexual abuse scandal: the deliberate policy of the Catholic Church at the highest levels to protect sex offenders, thereby endangering children”.
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