Pope Francis issued a letter to Catholics around the world Monday condemning the crime of priestly sexual abuse and its coverup, demanding accountability, and begging forgiveness for the pain suffered by victims.
The pontiff’s letter comes in response to new revelations in the United States of decades of misconduct by the Catholic Church and before his trip to Ireland, where sexual abuse by priests has roiled the once staunchly Catholic country.
Francis said lay Catholics must be involved in any effort to root out abuse and coverup. He blasted the clerical culture that has been blamed for the crisis, with church leaders more concerned for their reputation than the safety of children.
"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, realising the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives," Francis wrote in the three-page letter. "We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them."
The Vatican issued the letter days before Francis' trip this weekend to Ireland, where the church's credibility has been devastated by years of revelations that priests raped and molested children with impunity and their superiors covered up for them.
Priestly sex abuse was always expected to dominate the trip, but the issue has taken on new gravity following revelations in the U.S. that one of Francis' trusted cardinals, the retired archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, allegedly sexually abused and harassed minors as well as adult seminarians.
In addition, a grand jury report in Pennsylvania last week reported that at least 1,000 children were victims of some 300 priests over the last 70 years, and that generations of bishops failed repeatedly to take measures to protect their flock or punish the rapists.
In the letter, which was issued in seven languages, Francis referred to the Pennsylvania report, acknowledged that no effort to beg forgiveness of the victims will be sufficient but vowed "never again."