IMAGE: CNS photo/Clodagh Kilcoyne, Reuters
By Cindy Wooden
DUBLIN (CNS) — Pope Francis spent 90 minutes meeting
privately with eight survivors of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at the
hands of Catholic clergy or in Catholic-run schools and institutions.
The meeting took place at the Vatican nunciature in Dublin
Aug. 25, the first day of Pope Francis’ two-day visit to Ireland, the Vatican
press office announced.
Afterward, two of the survivors published a statement
describing the meeting. They said, “Pope Francis condemned corruption and
cover-up within the church as ‘caca’ — literally filth as one sees in a
toilet, his translator clarified.”
The Vatican named seven of the survivors who met with the
pope and said the eighth asked to remain anonymous. Those named were: Marie
Collins, a former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of
Minors; Father Patrick McCafferty, who was abused in a seminary; Father Joe
McDonald; Damian O’Farrell; Paul Jude Redmond; Clodagh Malone; and Bernadette
Fahy.
The sexual and physical abuse of children and vulnerable adults
by clergy and religious occurred on an unprecedented scale in Ireland, leaving
thousands of victims in its wake and toppling the authority and the social and
political influence of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin told reporters Aug. 22
that the number of children physically, sexually and emotionally abused by
Catholic clergy and in church-run institutions in Ireland was
“immense.” It included victims in church-run industrial schools, the
Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes and parishes.
Redmond and Malone, two of the survivors who met the pope,
issued a statement afterward through their Coalition of Mother and Baby Home
Survivors. They were the ones who said the pope used the Italian word for
excrement to describe the situation.
According to the statement, “Malone, who was born in
St. Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home in Dublin and adopted at 10 weeks old, asked
the pope to clearly and publicly state that the natural mothers who lost their
babies to adoption had done nothing wrong and (to) call for reconciliation and
reunion for these families broken by the Catholic Church both in Ireland and
around the world.”
Evidence suggests that the babies of many of the unwed
mothers who gave birth to their children in the Catholic-run homes were placed
in adoption without the consent of the mothers.
Redmond was born in Castlepollard Mother and Baby Home, the
statement said, and was adopted at 17 days. He asked Pope Francis to call on
the religious orders that ran the homes “to accept their responsibilities
for the horror that went on for generations in the homes.”
“The pope did apologize to all of us for what happened
in the homes,” their statement said.
Redmond and Malone gave the pope a letter claiming some 100,000
single mothers were forcibly separated from their babies and usually were told
“it was a mortal sin” to search for the children later.
“As a act of healing, Pope Francis, we ask that you
make it clear to the now elderly and dying community of natural mothers and
adoptees, that there is no sin in reunion and rather that it is a joyous event
that should be encouraged and facilitated by the Catholic Church.”
Major revelations about sexual and physical abuse in Irish
Catholic institutions and how church officials covered it up started to become
public in the mid-1990s. A series of judicial reports detailed a pattern of
cover-up and a tendency to put the avoidance of scandal and the reputation of
the church ahead of the needs of those who were abused. Four Irish bishops
resigned after being criticized for their handling of abuse allegations.
When the crisis was at its high point in 2010, then-Pope Benedict XVI
wrote a letter to the people of Ireland and addressed survivors
directly: “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. Many of you found that, when you were
courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen.”
Pope Benedict ordered an apostolic visitation of Ireland’s
four archdioceses, its seminaries and its religious orders.
Before the pope left Rome for Ireland, the Vatican had said
the pope would meet with some survivors.
Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, told reporters that even in
2015 when Pope Francis chose Dublin as the site of the World Meeting of
Families 2018, he knew that the history of abuse and the ongoing trauma it
caused would be on the agenda.
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