He Pope Francis stated this Friday that the Catholic Church must seek “forgiveness” for the “scourge” of sexual abuse of minorsin a speech before political and civil society representatives in Belgium.
“The Church must be ashamed and ask for forgivenessand try to resolve this situation with Christian humility, and do everything possible so that it does not happen again,” the pope said at the meeting, in which Belgian King Philip participated.
“I think of the dramatic cases of abuse of minors, a scourge that the Church is facing with determination and firmness, listening and accompanying injured people and implementing a broad prevention program around the world“, he expressed.
“This is the shame that we all have to assume now, apologize for it, and solve the problem“, said.
In his speech, the Argentine pope made reference to a huge scandal that shook the Belgian church last year, related to abuse of minors and forced adoptions of children from single mothers.
“I am saddened by the phenomenon of ‘forced adoptions’, also present here in Belgium between the 50s and 70s of the last century,” he said.
The Belgian website HLN estimates that about 30,000 children were taken from their mothers in Belgium between 1945 and the 1980s. Belgian bishops apologize in 2023 and commissioned an independent investigation into the cases.
“In those thorny stories the bitter fruit of a crime and a crimewith what was unfortunately the result of a mentality widespread in all strata of society,” the Pope said.
“Frequently, families and other social entities, including the Church, thought that to remove the negative stigma, which unfortunately in those times affected those who were single mothers, it would be better for both, mother and child, for the latter to be adopted.” , he noted.
Zero tolerance
For the pontiff, who introduced several reforms to increase penalties for pedophiles or punish cases of cover-up, “the drama of child abuse is more scandalous in the Church because, precisely where you have to take care of people, you destroy them.”
“It may be that there are people who are playing badly. The policy is to clean up. If we know that they are playing badly, the complaint comes and we clean up, but zero tolerance, that is the policy of the Church,” he added.
Documentary on Star+
In the audiovisual material, Jorge Bergoglio states that zero tolerance was not always the usual practice since before “the temptation of the Church was always to cover it up, until it dawned on us.”
“I found everything, from the denier who denies even the evidence and is closed and no bullets enter him, to the repentant, who is carrying his sorrow for what he did. The culture of abuse is everywhere“Unfortunately,” he stressed.
For the Pope, in any case, with the new normative frameworks, “The Church is trying to ensure that its priests and nuns do not abuse. Today I believe that what each diocese, the Vatican, etc., is doing is an example of the fight against abuse.”
Source: Ambito
