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Pope Expresses “Shame and Sorrow” over Pennsylvania Sex Abuse Case

HeadlineAug 17, 2018

The Vatican has broken its silence after a shocking Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed that more than 300 Catholic priests sexually abused 1,000 children, and possibly thousands more, over a span of seven decades, as the church leadership covered up the abuse, transferring predator priests rather than firing them, and locking abuse complaints away in a “secret archive.” In a statement issued Thursday—two days after the grand jury delivered its report—Vatican spokesperson Greg Burke described the abuses as “criminal and morally reprehensible.”

Greg Burke: “There are two words that can express the feelings faced with these horrible crimes: shame and sorrow. The Holy See treats very seriously the work of the grand jury and the report it has produced. The Holy See condemns unequivocally the sexual abuse of minors. The abuses described in the report are criminal and morally reprehensible. The acts were betrayals of trust that robbed survivors of their dignity and, in many cases, also their faith. The church must learn hard lessons from the past, and there should be accountability for both abusers and those who permitted abuse to occur.”

The Vatican told victims Pope Francis “is on their side” and promised action to “root out this tragic horror.” The statement came just months after the pope said he mishandled a Vatican investigation into widespread sexual abuses by clergy in Chile, and less than two months after a Vatican court sentenced the church’s former ambassador to Washington, D.C., to five years in prison on a child pornography charge.

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