DUBLIN/KNOCK, Ireland (Reuters) – On Sunday Aug. 26, Pope Francis begged forgiveness for the multitude of abuses suffered by victims in Ireland at the hand of the church over decades as he concluded a tour of the once deeply Catholic country watched by parishioners and protesters.
After meeting privately with abuse victims on Saturday on the first papal visit to Ireland in almost four decades, Francis apologized to mothers estranged from their children in church-run homes, children abused by priests and those exploited in religious schools, calling it a “state of shame.”
“To survivors of abuse of power, conscience and sexual abuse, recognizing what they have told me, I would like to put these crimes before the mercy of the Lord and ask forgiveness for them,” Francis told a mass attended by more than 100,000 people at Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
“We apologize for some members of the hierarchy who did not take care of these painful situations and kept silent.”
Years of sexual abuse scandals have shattered the credibility of the Church which four decades ago dominated Irish society. In the past three years, Irish voters have approved abortion and gay marriage in referendums, defying the Vatican.
Pressure on the pope over church abuse increased elsewhere on Sunday when a former top Vatican official accused Francis of having known of allegations of sex abuse by a prominent U.S. cardinal for five years before accepting his resignation last month.
The declining influence of the Catholic Church has been demonstrated by crowds far smaller than those that met Pope John Paul II during the last Papal visit in 1979, when more than three-quarters of Ireland’s population turned out.
While 500,000 people snapped up tickets to see Francis say mass, local media quoted police recording the numbers as estimating some 130,000 arrived in the rain at the same spot where Pope John Paul II stood 39 years ago. Tens of thousands more prayed with him at the Knock shrine in the west of Ireland.
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