Vatican trial for priests accused of abuse and cover-up in Vatican City youth seminary

Aboard the papal plane, Jan 28, 2019 / 07:48 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Monday that he sensed “inflated expectation” surrounding the Vatican’s February sex abuse summit, and outlined his specific aims for the meeting.

Speaking on the papal flight returning from Panama, the pope said he wanted the world’s bishops to receive a “catechesis” on the suffering of abuse survivors, and understand better the urgent reality of combating sexual abuse. This understanding, he said, would lead into a penitential liturgy during the February meeting.

“There will be testimonies to help to become aware and then a penitential liturgy to ask forgiveness for the whole Church,” Pope Francis told journalists Jan 28.
The pope emphasized the importance of bishops meeting with victims of sex abuse to hear their testimonies directly to understand the lasting effects of sexual abuse.

Pope Francis said that he regularly meets with abuse victims. “I remember one … 40 years without being able to pray. It is terrible, the suffering is terrible,” he said.

Francis also said he sensed many were expecting too much from the three-day meeting being held Feb. 21-24, and that he had a particular vision for what would be achieved: understanding the experience of victims, prayer, and the establishment of “protocols” for handling abuse cases world-wide.

“I permit myself to say that I’ve perceived a bit of an inflated expectation. We need to deflate the expectations to these points that I’m saying,” he said. “Because the problem of abuses will continue. It’s a human problem.”

“We, resolving the problem in the Church, [and] raising awareness, will help to resolve it in society … but first, we must become aware, have the protocols, and move forward,” he said.

Pope Francis said the Vatican invited all of the presidents of the world’s bishops’ conferences and the heads of the Eastern Catholic Churches to attend the February summit because his council of cardinal advisors “felt the responsibility to give a ‘catechesis’… on this problem to the episcopal conferences.”

Victims of clergy sexual abuse and leaders of men’s and women’s religious orders will also be present at the bishops’ summit, which the Vatican has previously clarified will be “an assembly of pastors, not an academic conference.”

On the papal flight, Pope Francis expressed his desire that the heads all of the episcopal conferences leave Rome next month with a common understanding of the “protocols” needed to address sexual abuse in their respective countries.

The pope said that each episcopal conference would make “general programs”  detailing the responsibilities of each local Church authority for handling sex abuse cases, but that these must address a common set of responsibilities.

“That they are protocols that are clear. This is the main thing,” he said.

In his interview on the papal flight, Pope Francis also touched on the formation and sex education of young people with regards to Church teaching.

“We need to give an objective sexual education, that is without ideological colonization,” he said. “If you start by giving sexual education full of ideological colonization, you destroy the person.”

The pope warned that it is important which teachers or textbooks are chosen for this task in schools. “There are things that mature and things that do harm,” he said.

“Sex as a gift from God must be taught,” Pope Francis said. “The ideal is to start from home, with the parents.”

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Vatican City, Apr 11, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has praised the decision to livestream the exposition of the Turin Shroud on Holy Saturday amid the coronavirus pandemic. 

The Archdiocese of Turin has invited Catholics around the world to pray virtually before the Shroud at 5pm local time April 11.

For centuries, the faithful have venerated the Shroud, which bears the image of a crucified man, as Christ’s burial cloth.

In a letter to Turin Archbishop Cesare Nosiglia dated April 9, the pope wrote: “I wish to express my warm appreciation to you for this gesture, which comes in response to the request of God’s faithful people, harshly tried by the coronavirus pandemic.”

The pope said he wanted to echo the archbishop’s appeal to Catholics to contemplate “the Man of the Shroud” who bears the traits of the “man of sorrows” described in the Book of Isaiah (53:3,4-5).

He said: “As Christians, in the light of the Scriptures, we contemplate in this Cloth the icon of the Lord Jesus crucified, dead and risen. To Him we entrust ourselves, in Him we trust. Jesus gives us the strength to face every trial with faith, with hope and with love, in the certainty that the Father always listens to his children who cry out to Him, and saves them.”

“Dear Brother, and all of you, dear brothers and sisters, who will participate through the media in prayer before the Holy Shroud, let us live these days in intimate union with the Passion of Christ, to experience the grace and joy of his Resurrection.”

Catholics will be able to take part in the exposition via EWTN’s YouTube page and EWTN Vatican’s Facebook page.

They can also follow the event on the official Facebook page Sindone 2020 and Twitter account @Sindone2020.

With the Vatican’s assistance, the ceremony will broadcast via satellite in South America and sub-Saharan Africa. Through Telepace, a Catholic network based in Italy, the exposition will also be available to viewers in North Africa, the Middle East and Australia.

The event has its own logo, an image of the face on the Shroud, accompanied by the words “Più forte è l’amore” (“Love is stronger”), chosen by Archbishop Nosiglia as the ceremony’s theme.

More than 102,000 people had died from COVID-19 worldwide as of April 11, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

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Pope Francis makes the Sign of the Cross April 18, 2018. / Daniel Ibanez/CNA.

Vatican City, Sep 5, 2021 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis prayed Sunday for the victims of Hurricane Ida, which has resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people in the… […]