Pope Francis has met with survivors of clergy sexual abuse carried out in Portugal and blasted the country’s Catholic hierarchy for their response.
Francis addressed the scandal facing the Portuguese church on Wednesday - the first day of a five-day visit to Lisbon for the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day festival.
His visit comes after a panel of experts hired by Portugal’s bishops reported in February that priests and other church personnel may have abused at least 4,815 boys and girls since 1950.
After the document’s release, the bishops initially refused to remove named abusers from ministry and said they would only compensate victims if courts ordered them to.
The Vatican said Francis met with 13 abuse victims for more than an hour at the Vatican Embassy on Wednesday and characterised the pope’s role in the meeting as one of “intense listening.”
The victims were accompanied by church personnel in charge of child protection programmes.
The meeting came after Francis presided over a vigil service for Portuguese clergy and nuns at the capital’s iconic Jeronimos Monastery, where in February hundreds of people had gathered after the report was released to pray for victims.
“It is often accentuated by the disappointment and anger with which some people view the church, at times due to our poor witness and the scandals that have marred her face and call us to a humble and ongoing purification, starting with the anguished cry of the victims, who must always be accepted and listened to,” he said.
Francis demanded that bishops respond better to victims by accepting them and listening to them.
Bishop Jose Ornelas, the head of the Portuguese bishops’ conference, promised in a speech before Francis spoke to devote “our special attention to the protection of the welfare of children and the undertaking to protect them from all kinds of abuse.”
The Portuguese Catholic Church also promised in March to build a memorial to victims that would be unveiled during World Youth Day, but organisers scrapped the plan a few weeks ago.
In its place, victims’ advocates launched a campaign called “This is our memorial.”
Hours before the pope arrived, they put up a billboard in central Lisbon reading “4,800+ Children Abused by the Catholic Church in Portugal.”
Francis came to Lisbon to participate in his fourth World Youth Day, the raucous Catholic jamboree launched by St John Paul II in the 1980s to invigorate the next generation of Catholics in their faith.
More than a million young people from around the world were expected to attend the events in Lisbon, which run until Saturday.
