Pope Francis Says Ashamed Church Did Not Prioritise Abuse Victims In France
NDTV
"I would like to express to the victims my sadness, sorrow for the trauma they have suffered and also my shame, our shame, for the church's inability, for too long, to put them at the centre of its concerns," Pope Francis said.
Pope Francis said on Wednesday he was saddened and ashamed by the Catholic Church's inability to deal with sexual abuse of children in France and that the Church must make itself a "safe home for everyone".
"I would like to express to the victims my sadness, sorrow for the trauma they have suffered and also my shame, our shame, for the church's inability, for too long, to put them at the centre of its concerns," Francis said at his weekly general audience.
Speaking a day after a major investigation revealed that French clergy had abused more than 200,000 children over 70 years, the pontiff invited Catholics in France to take responsibility for what had happened in order to make the Church a "safe home for everyone".
"This is the moment of shame," he said, calling on bishops to make every efforts to ensure that "similar tragedies do not happen again".
