BY Ian Dunn | July 7 | 
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Pope Francis meets with clerical abuse survivors for the first time
The Holy Father today praised six abuse survivors for speaking out about what happened to them, saying that telling the truth ‘was a service of love, since for us it shed light on a terrible darkness in the life of the.’
The meeting today with six survivors— two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany—was the first time Pope Francis has met directly with a group of victims of clerical abuse, following a tradition begun by his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Speaking at Mass in the chapel of his residence, the Holy Father said that ‘there is no place in the Church’s ministry for those who commit these abuses.’
“So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained,” the Pope said, calling sex abuse a ‘crime and grave sin,’ that was made even worse when carried out by clergy.
“This is what causes me distress and pain at the fact that some priests and bishops, by sexually abusing minors” violated the innocence of children and their own vocation to God, he said.
“It is like a sacrilegious cult, because these boys and girls had been entrusted to the priestly charism in order to be brought to God.”
—Full report in this Friday’s SCO, in parishes July 11.
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