Abuse survivors 'deeply insulted' by Pope's comments

Survivors of clerical abuse tonight rounded on Pope Benedict XVI for not acknowledging senior clergy covered up decades of sickening abuse.

At the end of an unprecedented two-day Vatican summit with Irish Bishops, the Pontiff branded the sexual abuse of children and young people a "heinous crime" and a "grave sin".

The Vatican said the Pope also told Bishops the weakening of faith was a significant contributing factor in the phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors.

Maeve Lewis, of support group One in Four, hit back and said Pope Benedict's response was inadequate.

"It is deeply insulting to survivors to suggest that they were abused due to failures of faith, rather than because sex offending priests were moved from parish to parish, and those in authority looked away while further children were sexually abused," said Ms Lewis.

The 24 senior clergy were summonsed to Rome over the past mishandling of child abuse scandals that rocked the Catholic church in Ireland in the last year.

While one found the Catholic Church and Irish Government covered up almost four decades of sexual abuse and beatings by priests and nuns on thousands of children in state care another unveiled a catalogue of cover-ups by the Catholic hierarchy in Dublin to protect the church.

In a statement, the Vatican said the Holy Father had told the Bishops the sexual abuse of children and young people was not only a heinous crime, but also a grave sin which offends God and wounds the dignity of the human person created in his image.

"While realising that the current painful situation will not be resolved quickly, he challenged the Bishops to address the problems of the past with determination and resolve, and to face the present crisis with honesty and courage," it stated.

"He also expressed the hope that the present meeting would help to unify the Bishops and enable them to speak with one voice in identifying concrete steps aimed at bringing healing to those who had been abused, encouraging a renewal of faith in Christ and restoring the Church's spiritual and moral credibility."

Abuse survivor Marie Collins criticised the Vatican's statement as 'church-speak', adding she expected nothing better.

"It does nothing to accept there was a culture of cover-up, which is a hundred miles away from just an error of judgement or not being effective," said Ms Collins, who was targeted by a cleric in a children's hospital.

The Vatican said the senior clergy spoke frankly of the sense of pain and anger, betrayal, scandal and shame expressed by those who had been abused and the feeling of outrage reflected by the religious.

However, Andrew Madden, who in 1995 became the first in Ireland to go public with an abuse lawsuit against the church, said submissions made by survivors had been completely ignored during the summit.

"It would appear that self preservation and damage limitation for the Catholic Church is still a higher priority for Pope Benedict and the Bishops than the concerns and wishes of people who had been sexually abused as children by priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin over many decades, and that hardly represents change," said Mr Madden.

"I can only conclude that the Catholic Church remains a disgraced, discredited organisation that seems to be entirely incapable of responding in any intelligent, meaningful way to the findings of the Ferns, Ryan and Murphy Reports."

After the summit Cardinal Sean Brady, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, said the Pope had been concerned about this issue.

"We came after listening to many many people who conveyed their bewilderment, their shock, their anger at what had happened in regard to the abuse of child by priests ad religious," he said.

"I am pleased that this meeting has taken place because it was very clear to us that the Father, the Holy Father, is extremely concerned about this issue."

A Vatican spokesman said a Pastoral Letter being penned by the Pope to the Catholics of Ireland will be issued during Lent.