Pope Francis Addresses Grand Jury's PA Predator Priests Report

In a lengthy letter to Roman Catholics on Monday, Pope Francis addressed last week’s scathing grand jury report on Pennsylvania predator priests, acknowledging “with shame and repentance” the systemic failure to act on the abuses committed by clerics.

“We showed no care for the little ones,” he wrote. “We abandoned them.”

The letter released by the Vatican comes in the wake of a grand jury report that identified more than 300 priests who sexually abused children in six dioceses in the state. Ninety-nine of the priests served in the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

Outrage over the report’s lurid details have prompted calls for the resignation of Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik and the removal of the name of his predecessor Cardinal Donald Wuerl, from Pittsburgh’s North Catholic High School.

Although many of the sex crimes occurred decades ago, Francis wrote, “We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away.”

Acknowledging what he termed the “heart-wrenching pain of these victims,” Francis wrote that “their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity."

Moving forward, the pontiff pledged the Catholic Church would adopt a zero-tolerance police on sex abuse and cover-ups.

"If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history," he wrote.

In a statement issued Monday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said, "Pope Francis’ powerful letter acknowledges the painful truth that had been hiding in the shadows in Churches throughout Pennsylvania and appropriately focuses on the survivors who have suffered for too long.

"It is my hope that, following the Holy Father’s words and teachings, church leaders in Pennsylvania will cease their denials and deflections and now fully support the Grand Jury’s recommendations so that survivors
have the opportunity to obtain justice and ensure this type of widespread abuse and cover up never happens again."

Read the entire text of the letter here.

Image via Shutterstock.

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