Pope meets with abuse victims, promises accountability for those who failed to protect minors

After meeting with five sex abuse victims in Philadelphia, Pope Francis told international bishops that the church owes them a debt of gratitude for bringing to light shameful crimes.

“I am profoundly sorry. God weeps,” the pope said of sexual abuse. He called abuse victims “true heralds of hope and ministers of mercy.”

The five were not all Catholic, and not all of them were victims of sexual abuse by priests. Some had been abused by a teacher or family member, the Vatican said. A spokesman later said that while previous such encounters had been with victims of abuse by clerics or other church personnel, this meeting had a “larger perspective.”

UPDATE: Here is the text of the pope’s remarks after the encounter with victims:

“I hold the stories and the suffering and the sorry of children who were sexually abused by priests deep in my heart. I remain overwhelmed with shame that men entrusted with the tender care of children violated these little ones and caused grievous harm.

I am profoundly sorry. God weeps. The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must no longer be held in secret. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all.

You survivors of abuse have yourselves become true heralds of hope and ministers of mercy. We humbly owe each one of you and your families our gratitude for your immense courage to shine the light of Christ on the evil of the sexual abuse of children.”

Earlier this year, Pope Francis approved a system of reporting and judging bishops who fail to protect minors, including a Vatican tribunal to determine whether a bishop is guilty of “abuse of office.”

The Vatican said the pope met with three women and two men who had been abused as minors. The pope met with each, expressing his own “pain and shame” at their suffering.

Here is the Vatican statement on the encounter:

This morning between 8:00 and 9:00 am, at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, the Holy Father received some victims of sexual abuse by the clergy or by members of their families or their teachers. The group consisted of five adults – three women, two men – who have suffered abuse when they were minors. Each person was accompanied by a family member or support person.

The group was accompanied by Cardinal Seán Patrick O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston and Chair of the commission set up by the Pope for the protection of minors; by the Archbishop of Philadelphia, Most Reverend Charles Chaput and Bishop Fitzgerald, head of the Diocese of Philadelphia Office for the protection of minors.

The Pope spoke with visitors, listening to their stories and offering them a few words together as a group and later listening to each one individually. He then prayed with them and expressed his solidarity in sharing their suffering, as well as his own pain and shame in especially in the case of injury caused them by clergy or church workers.

Pope Francis reiterated the commitment of the Church so that all victims be heard and treated with justice; the guilty be punished and crimes of abuse be combated with an effective prevention program in the Church and in society. The Pope thanked the victims for their essential contribution to restore the truth and begin the journey of healing. The meeting lasted about half an hour and ended with the blessing of the Holy Father.

In Philadelphia, pope pays tribute to a native saint

Pope Francis today paid tribute to Philadelphia’s own Saint Katharine Drexel, who as a young heiress used her fortune to build missions and schools for the poor.

Celebrating Mass in the Philadelphia cathedral shortly after his arrival in the city on Saturday, the pope said the story of Katharine Drexel held a lesson for the way the church should challenge people.

While touring Europe in 1887, Drexel met with Pope Leo XIII and asked for more missionaries to Native Americans. Pope Leo responded pointedly, “What about you? What are you going to do?”

Later that year Drexel made an extended visit to Indian missions in the western United States. She eventually founded an order of sisters, using her inheritance to build convents and schools for African-Americans in the South and Native Americans in the Southwest.

In his homily, Pope Francis said Pope Leo had known how to spark a tremendous personal change, and that modern church leaders should also finds ways to lead people to share their “enthusiasm and gifts with our communities.”

“Those words – ‘What about you?’ – were addressed to a young person, a young woman with high ideals, and they changed her life. They made her think of the immense work that had to be done, and to realize that she was being called to do her part,” the pope said.

“How many young people in our parishes and schools have the same high ideals, generosity of spirit, and love for Christ and the church! Do we challenge them? Do we make space for them and help them to do their part?” he said.

This lesson is especially valuable today, the pope said, because the church increasingly needs lay people engaged in its mission. A “sense of collaboration and shared responsibility” with lay people is needed, he said.

“We know that the future of the church in a rapidly changing society will call, and even now calls, for a much more active engagement on the part of the laity,” he said.

And in a shout-out to the contribution of women, he added: “In a particular way, it means valuing the immense contribution which women, lay and religious, have made and continue to make, to the life of our communities.”

In a particular way, it means valuing the immense contribution which women, lay and religious, have made and continue to make, to the life of our communities.

Pope Francis’ somewhat different take on religious liberty

Well, that was interesting.

At the official “religious freedom” event during his U.S. visit, Pope Francis never mentioned the U.S. bishops’ “Fortnight for Freedom” campaigns, nor their battles over alleged religious discrimination on Obamacare provisions and conscience protection issues.

The bishops have certainly made this a priority. Here was Archbishop William E. Lori last June asking the faithful to support their efforts:

“Religious institutions in the United States are in danger of losing their freedom to hire for mission and their freedom to defend the family…. Endangered is the freedom of church ministries to provide employee benefits and to provide adoptions and refugee services in accord with the church’s teaching on faith and morals. It is one thing for others to disagree with the church’s teaching but quite another to discriminate against the rights of believers to practice our faith, not just in word but in the way we conduct our daily life, ministry and business.”

Perhaps a detailed analysis of these matters was never in the cards for Pope Francis. At the White House the other day, he did offer generic backing for the bishops, encouraging the defense of religious freedom from “everything that would threaten or compromise it.” And he made a brief, symbolic stop at the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious order that is suing over the Obamacare provisions on contraception coverage.

If the bishops were looking for something more explicit in Philadelphia, the pope went in a different and more philosophical direction: “Uniformity.”

It’s a word that’s popped up more than once during the pope’s U.S. visit. Clearly, the pope doesn’t like it. As he said at the 9/11 Memorial Friday, religious leaders should be “opposing every attempt to create a rigid uniformity.”

But what exactly is he talking about?

Today in Philadelphia we got some explanation. Citing the French Jesuit scholar Michel de Certeau, the pope said the big threat to religious liberty today comes from “a uniformity that the egotism of the powerful, the conformism of the weak, or the ideology of the utopian would seek to impose on us.”

The pope then explained how this uniformity emerges in the modern age, going back to a concept he expressed in his encyclical on the environment, Laudato Sì.

“We live in a world subject to the ‘globalization of the technocratic paradigm,’ which consciously aims at a one-dimensional uniformity and seeks to eliminate all differences and traditions in a superficial quest for unity,” he said.

To resist that movement, he said, religions have a duty to promote a healthy pluralism in which differences are respected and valued. The pope evidently sees such pluralism as the antidote to the push for uniformity.

“In a world where various forms of modern tyranny seek to suppress religious freedom, or try to reduce it to a subculture without right to a voice in the public square, or to use religion as a pretext for hatred and brutality, it is imperative that the followers of the various religions join their voices in calling for peace, tolerance and respect for the dignity and rights of others,” he said.

He noted that the Quakers who founded Philadelphia aimed to establish a colony that would be a “haven of religious freedom and tolerance.”

I doubt if all the pope’s deep-thinking points were picked up by the massive crowd that filled Independence Mall, a three-block area that is considered the cradle of American democracy.

They applauded when he spoke about the Declaration of Independence and its affirmation that all men and women are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that governments exist to protect those rights. He spoke at a lecturn used by Abraham Lincoln when he gave the Gettysburg Address.

“Those ringing words continue to inspire us today, even as they have inspired peoples throughout the world to fight for the freedom to live in accordance with their dignity,” the pope said.

But he added that U.S. history also shows that these principles must constantly be re-affirmed and defended. As examples, he cited the abolition of slavery, the extension of voting rights, the growth of the labor movement, and “the gradual effort to eliminate every kind of racism and prejudice directed at successive waves of new Americans.”

The event was billed as a “meeting for religious freedom with the Hispanic community and other immigrants,” and the Latin American pope returned to the theme of immigration at the end of his talk, delighting his audience when he told them: “Never be ashamed of your traditions.”

“Many of you have emigrated to this country at great personal cost, but in the hope of building a new life. Do not be discouraged by whatever challenges and hardships you face. I ask you not to forget that, like those who came here before you, you bring many gifts to your new nation,” he said.