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12th Sep 2018

Pope Francis calls meeting with Bishops to discuss clerical abuse crisis

Kate Demolder

Pope clerical abuse meeting

It would be the first global gathering of church leaders to discuss the crisis.

Pope Francis has summoned bishops from around the world for a meeting focused on protecting minors from sexual abuse, the Vatican reports.

The meeting would aim to aid the Pontiff wrestle with the global clerical sexual abuse crisis and explosive allegations that are currently dogging his papacy as well as the entire Catholic Church.

According to Vatican News, Pope Francis will meet in February with representatives of all the Catholic bishops of the world in order to discuss the protection of minors and vulnerable adults.

The announcement was made by the Vice-director of the Holy See Press Office, Paloma García Ovejero, at a press briefing on the meeting of the Council of Cardinal Advisers, which concluded Wednesday morning.

The meeting will take place in the Vatican from 21 – 24 February 2019.

The Pope provoked outrage back in January when he discredited victims of Chilean abuser priest the Rev. Fernando Karadima.

He later admitted “grave errors in judgment” and expressed shame in a letter to faithful thanking at an open-air mass in Santiago, thanking victims for their “valiant perseverance”

Decades of abuse and cover-ups by the Catholic Church also shadowed the Pope’s visit to Ireland last month, which saw hundreds of people take to the streets and boycott His Holiness’ arrival.

Prior to his visit, Pope Francis penned a letter addressed to all the “people of God,” referencing recent reports of abuse at the hands of the Catholic church.

“With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives,” the letter read.

“We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.”

The letter followed reports that the church covered up abuse by as many as 300 priests across the state of Pennsylvania since 1947.

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