{"id":2114,"date":"2010-04-09T17:27:16","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T17:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2010\/04\/pope-willing-to-meet-with-more.php"},"modified":"2010-04-09T17:27:16","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T17:27:16","slug":"pope-willing-to-meet-with-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/04\/pope-willing-to-meet-with-more","title":{"rendered":"Pope Willing to Meet with More Abuse Victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI is ready to hold more meetings with victims of clerical sex abuse, his top spokesman stated on Friday (April 9).<br \/>\n&#8220;The pope has written that he is available for new meetings with (victims), taking the same path as the whole community of the church,&#8221;<br \/>\nwrote the Rev. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office, on the Web site of Vatican Radio.<br \/>\nLombardy also called for continued application of internal church discipline against clerical sex abusers and &#8220;collaboration with the civil authorities &#8230; taking into account the specific laws and situations of different countries.&#8221;<br \/>\nLast month, in an open letter to Irish Catholics regarding the church&#8217;s sex abuse crisis, Benedict recalled that &#8220;on several occasions since my election to the See of Peter, I have met with victims of sexual abuse, as indeed I am ready to do in the future.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;I have sat with them, I have listened to their stories, I have acknowledged their suffering, and I have prayed with them and for them,&#8221; Benedict wrote.<br \/>\nOver the last two years, Benedict has met with abuse victims from Australia, Canada and the United States.<br \/>\nEarlier this week, two of the five victims who met with the pope during his April 2008 visit to the U.S. announced plans for a demonstration in Rome this October to call for more action to prevent sex abuse and help victims.<br \/>\n&#8220;It&#8217;s been two years now, and little has been done,&#8221; Bernie McDaid, one of the victims, told the National Catholic Reporter.<br \/>\nOn Friday, an advocate for abuse victims dismissed the pope&#8217;s willingness to hold further meetings as insignificant.<br \/>\n&#8220;Kids need and deserve immediate protection and dramatic reform, not public relations ploys and photo ops,&#8221; said Barbara Dorris of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. &#8220;They need substance, not symbols.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em>&#8212; Francis X. Rocca<br \/>\nCopyright 2010 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI is ready to hold more meetings with victims of clerical sex abuse, his top spokesman stated on Friday (April 9). &#8220;The pope has written that he is available for new meetings with (victims), taking the same path as the whole community of the church,&#8221; wrote the Rev. Federico Lombardi,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pope Willing to Meet with More Abuse Victims<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2010\/04\/pope-willing-to-meet-with-more\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pope Willing to Meet with More Abuse Victims\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Benedict XVI is ready to hold more meetings with victims of clerical sex abuse, his top spokesman stated on Friday (April 9). &#8220;The pope has written that he is available for new meetings with (victims), taking the same path as the whole community of the church,&#8221; wrote the Rev. 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