Pope Calls for Battle on Abuse, But Where Are the Weapons?

ROME— Several moments during the four-day summit on clerical sex abuse truly were inspirational. Like when Nigerian nun, Sister Veronica Openibo, scolded Pope Francis and the 190 church leaders who had gathered there. “How could the clerical Church have kept silent, covering these atrocities?" she asked, at one point turning to the pope who was seated near her. “The silence, the carrying of the secrets in the hearts of the perpetrators, the length of the abuses and the constant transfers of perpetrators are unimaginable.”

Other moments focused on the suffering at the center of the scandals. “From the age of 15 I had sexual relations with a priest,” the prelates heard on the first day, listening to one victim’s recorded testimony. “This lasted for 13 years. I got pregnant three times and he made me have an abortion three times, quite simply because he did not want to use condoms or contraceptives. At first I trusted him so much that I did not know he could abuse me. I was afraid of him, and every time I refused to have sex with him, he would beat me.”

On Saturday evening, an unnamed young man, the victim of a predatory priest for years, spoke at an evening service where the conference attendees asked for forgiveness. He seemed to look each leader, including the pope, directly in the eye as he fought back tears. “What you carry inside you is like a ghost, which others are unable to see,” he said, describing his years of abuse. “They will never fully see and know you. What hurts the most, is the certainty that nobody will understand you. That lives with you for the rest of your life.” Then he went on to play a song so mournful on his violin that he seemed to bring that ghost to life.

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