April 21, 2008 - Pope Meets with, Apologizes to, Victims of Clergy Sexual Abuse
April 18, 2008 – The shepherd of the world's 1 billion Catholics met on Thursday 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 Pope apologized to his guests for “everything,” according to another victim.
Plans for the secret meeting were kept quiet, but two Boston-area victims of the clergy sexual abuse shared details of the meeting in interviews late Thursday. Though Benedict had been expected to address clergy sexual abuse during 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, at a giant open-air Mass on Thursday.
The meeting with victims took place Thursday afternoon between the Mass at Nationals Park and an address to Catholic educators had long been in the works but wasn't on the Pope's official agenda.
Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston had high hopes that Pope Benedict would accept his invitation to visit O-Malley’s archdiocese to mark its 200th anniversary. When that didn't work out, O'Malley kept in touch with Archbishop Pietro Sambi, who represents the Vatican in the U.S., about bringing the Pope and victims together during the trip.
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 from it. O’Malley 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 are 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, beginning 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 heal old wounds.
The two men got to know one another other; and 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 no longer does. He went to Mass. He went to accompany his mother, but when McDaid heard Benedict apologize for the sex abuse crisis, it took him so completely by surprise that he cried, he said.
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 a private chapel.
When Benedict arrived, he prayed and blessed the group, which included O'Malley and Vatican representative Sambi.
Horne said that the Pope stood feet from them, and was clearly 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 Pope Benedict. McDaid went first. He shook the Pope's hand and told him that when he was an altar boy, a priest had abused in him in the sacristy of his own church. He went on to tell the Pope that there is a cancer in the Catholic Church that needs to be fixed.
Horne went second. Like McDaid, Horne hadn't been to Mass in many years. None of his children have received the sacraments that define one’s identity as a Catholic.
Horne said he feels a heavy responsibility to other victims, but knew he could only speak for himself.
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 that it was time to move beyond anger and embrace hope, and said he felt as though there was a sense we have begun the journey.
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