Pope Meets With Victims of Sex Abuse by Clergy, Apologizes

Foxnews.com

Friday, April 18, 2008

WASHINGTON —  For 25 remarkable minutes, the shepherd of the world's 1 billion Catholics met with a handful of victims in the worst scandal to ever tarnish the U.S. church.

One man, abused as an altar boy, said he placed his hand over Pope Benedict XVI's heart as he pleaded with him to fix the problem of sexual abuse of minors.

The pontiff apologized to his guests for not being perfectly fluent in English, and "for everything," according to another victim.

Plans for the secret meeting were kept quiet. But two Boston-area victims of abuse shared details of the meeting in interviews late Thursday with The Associated Press.

Though Benedict had been expected to address clergy sexual abuse in his visit to the U.S., the volume and frankness of his remarks over the first half of his six-day pilgrimage have been startling.

Benedict expressed shame and a determination to do better in a talk with U.S. bishops on the plane ride over, and again Thursday at a giant open-air Mass.

The meeting that took place Thursday afternoon between a Mass at Nationals Park and an address to Catholic educators had long been in the works, but wasn't on the pope's official schedule.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston had high hopes Benedict would accept his invitation to visit his archdiocese to mark its 200th anniversary. When that didn't work out, O'Malley kept in touch with Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who as papal nuncio represents the Vatican in the U.S., about bringing Benedict and victims together during the trip, said the Rev. John Connolly, a special assistant to O'Malley.

"The desire to do this was definitely from the Holy Father," Connolly said.

The pope ultimately asked O'Malley to invite a small group of victims who were "both open to meeting him and would derive a spiritual benefit," Connolly said.

He found two good candidates in Bernie McDaid and Olan Horne, who were molested by priests when they were boys growing up in the Boston area.

Both men were angry at the church, but welcomed the opportunity to meet with church officials as the crisis mushroomed. The issue has dominated American Catholic life for much of this decade, starting in 2002 in Boston.

McDaid attended a meeting in which then-Boston Archbishop Cardinal Bernard Law asked for forgiveness, and traveled to Rome to meet with church officials. In 2006, Horne spoke of hope and love as O'Malley began a series of masses and services meant to bind up wounds.

The two men got to know each other; eventually their stories were portrayed in a 2005 Showtime film, "Our Fathers."

About three weeks ago over dinner, Boston church officials asked McDaid whether he would meet with Benedict if an anticipated meeting with victims came together.

"I said, 'Of course,"' McDaid said.

On Thursday morning, McDaid did something he never does. He went to Mass.

He went to accompany his mother. But when McDaid heard Benedict apologize for the sex abuse crisis, "It took me totally by surprise. It was so heartfelt and emotional, I cried."

Afterward, he found himself in a car with a police escort, barreling through Washington red lights to the Vatican residence on Embassy Row, where Benedict was staying.

There, he joined a handful of other victims in pews in the nunciature's private chapel.

When Benedict arrived, he prayed and blessed the group, which included O'Malley and Sambi.

Horne said Benedict apologized for his English, but then assured them that he had the words he wanted to express.

"He stood there feet from us, and you could tell he was heavy, heavy with responsibility," Horne said. "He looked at us deeply. You could see he searched for words, that he was thinking."

Each victim was invited to spend a few minutes talking with Benedict. McDaid went first.

He shook the pope's hand and told him that as an altar boy he had been abused by a priest in the sacristy of his parish.

"I said, 'Holy Father, you need to know you have a cancer in your flock and I hope you will do something for this problem; you have to fix this,"' McDaid said.

McDaid said that at that moment, he put his hand on the 81-year-old pontiff's heart.

"He looked down at the floor and back at me, like, 'I know what you mean,' McDaid said. "He took it in emotionally. We looked eye to eye."

Horne went second. Like McDaid, Horne hadn't been to Mass in many years. None of his children have received the sacraments that define Catholic identity.

He too had seized the opportunity to meet Benedict, but was not convinced it would happen.

"Till I saw his little red shoes," Horne said, "I knew it could go sideways."

Horne said he felt a heavy responsibility to other victims, but knew he could only speak for himself.

"There was an opportunity for an unscripted, unfiltered opportunity face to face," he said.

When he headed the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Benedict reviewed the files containing horrific charges against priests in the United States. But Horne said what struck him was Benedict's sincerity, warmth and sense of understanding that reading reports cannot summon.

Horne told the pope it was time to move beyond anger and embrace hope.

"He thanked me for having the courage, and (said) that he was with us on this path. I asked him to embrace us. He said — and I can't recall the exact words — 'I think I have begun to."'

"There was a sense we had begun the journey."

Pope Benedict meets with victims of clerical sexual abuse

Posted on Apr 17, 2008 15:50pm CST.

By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
Washington, D.C.

In an unexpected and essentially unprecedented move, Pope Benedict XVI met quietly with five victims of clerical sexual abuse this afternoon at the Vatican’s embassy to the United States, located in Washington, D.C.

Prior to this afternoon, no pope had ever met with victims of sexual abuse by priests. That omission has been oft-cited by critics of the church’s response to the crisis as an indication that Rome and the papacy are out of touch with American realities, or in denial about the magnitude of the problem.

All five victims who met with Pope Benedict today are from the Boston area, and sources told NCR that Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston played a role in arranging their encounter with Pope Benedict. In the end, however, those sources say, it was the pope’s choice to take the meeting.

At least some of the victims plan to make a public statement later this afternoon.

The Vatican has issued a statement saying that the meeting took place, and one of the victims who took part, confirmed the meeting for NCR shortly after it concluded.

Benedict is today is wrapping up the first leg of his six-day visit to the United States. He has repeatedly engaged the sexual abuse crisis during this trip, speaking about it for the first time before he even arrived.

“We are deeply ashamed, and we will do all that is possible that this cannot happen in the future,” the pope said in a session with reporters aboard the papal plane Tuesday en route to the United States.

Benedict argued that efforts to address the crisis have to unfold on three levels: the legal and juridical, the pastoral, and programs of prevention to ensure that future priests are “sound.” Pointedly, the pope said that “it’s more important to have good priests than to have many.”

In his address to the American bishops at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Wednesday evening, he returned to the theme. The pope devoted five full paragraphs to sexual abuse of children, referring to it as “evil” and a “sin.”

In perhaps the most dramatic phrase, the pope conceded, quoting Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. bishops, that the crisis was “sometimes very badly handled.”

The pope pledged the church to pursue healing and reconciliation with those “so seriously wronged.”

Again during his Mass Thursday morning at Washington’s Nationals Park, the pope offered strong language about the crisis.

“I acknowledge the pain which the church in America has experienced as a result of the sexual abuse of minors,” the pope said. “No words of mine could describe the pain and harm inflicted by such abuse.”

The pope went on to ask all American Catholics to “do what you can to foster healing and reconciliation, and to assist those who have been hurt.”

In tandem with his meeting this afternoon, these references suggest a broad desire on the part of the pope to signal to American Catholics that he “gets it” -- meaning that he grasps the depth and gravity of the crisis.

Observers often point out that as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was responsible for overseeing the church’s internal judicial process resulting from accusations of sexual abuse against a minor. In that role, the future pope read virtually all of the case files, arguably giving a more detailed “on paper” understanding of the crisis than most American bishops.

By most accounts, Benedict was deeply affected by that experience.

Whether today’s meeting, or Benedict’s repeated public references to the crisis, will ultimately satisfy victims remains to be seen. In an April 17 interview with CNN, David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said that the pope’s rhetoric would ring hollow until it was backed by action.

Specifically, Clohessy called for Benedict to extend the “zero tolerance” policy of the American bishops to the universal church, and for at least a couple of American bishops associated with the crisis to be fired.

Clohessy spoke before news of the pope’s meeting with the five Boston-area victims became public.

Despite the endurance of such question marks, the pope’s forceful language, coupled with today’s meeting, is likely to at least diminish impressions that the pope is “out of touch” with the American situation.

Expectations created by the pope’s language, some observers say, could also make it more difficult for church officials to resist pressure for transparency, including the full disclosure of relevant documents related to allegations of sexual abuse, in the future.