BRUSSELS – After Pope Francis met a group of survivors of clerical sexual abuse in Belgium Friday, one advocacy organization has said such gestures are not enough, but the church must pursue real reform.
On Friday evening, after being scolded by Belgium’s Prime Minister Alexander De Croo over the country’s clerical abuse scandals earlier that morning, the Pope met with a group of 17 abuse survivors at the Vatican’s nunciature in Brussels.
A Sept. 27 Vatican statement said the meeting lasted for over two hours, and allowed victims to “bring to the Pope their own story and their own pain to the Pope, and to express their expectations regarding the church’s commitment against abuse”.
