Pope Francis urged ‘to go beyond apologies’ over abuse cover-up

Pope Francis must agree to release all secret files on how the Church covered up child abuse since the early 1960s if he wants his historic meeting with victims to avoid being labelled a “tokenistic, box-ticking PR exercise”.

Survivor groups insisted on the commitment as Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Vatican must introduce mandatory reporting of child abuse and cancel any statute of limitation on cases, warning that “words need to be followed up by actions”.