Pope’s pastoral letter - A welcome apology that lacks resolve

In as much as the Pope’s pastoral letter is an apology for clerical paedophile abuse, it should be warmly welcomed, but it is distinctly short on specifics about what should actually be done.

“Nothing can undo the wrong you have endured,” Pope Benedict XVI explained in addressing survivors. “Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated.”

There were two distinctly different forms of abuse. One was the sexual abuse when the victims were children and the other was the torment those victims had to endure when they sought to expose what had happened to them. Church authorities and their representatives sought to defend the indefensible by suggesting that victims essentially fabricated their stories of abuse.