(By Laura Clarke).
Pope Francis has asked forgiveness for pedophile priests and called for greater severity from the Church towards cover-ups in the preface of a book by Swiss writer Daniel Pittet about his own long experience of child abuse by one priest.
"How can a priest, serving Christ and His Church, come to cause so much hurt?" the pope asked in the preface, published on Monday by Rome-based daily La Repubblica on its front page. "How can he have consecrated his life to lead children to God, and instead end up devouring them in what I have called 'a diabolical sacrifice' that destroys both the victim and the life of the Church?" he continued. "Some victims have even committed suicide. These deaths weigh on my heart, on my conscience and on the conscience of the entire Church. I extend my feelings of love and pain to their families and I humbly ask their forgiveness." Francis said pedophile priests were guilty of "an absolute monstrosity, a horrendous sin" and added it was the Church's duty to be extremely severe with priests who betray their mission in this way and with any superiors who protect them.
"My thanks go to Daniel (Pittet), because testimonies such as his tear down the wall of silence that has suffocated the scandals and the suffering, they shed light on a terrible shadow area in the life of the Church. They pave the way for just reparation and the grace of reconciliation, and also help the pedophiles to realize the terrible consequences of their actions." In his book Pittet explains how his local priest took advantage of his vulnerability when he was a child and abused him over the course of four years. "I was a shy and fragile child," Pittet told La Repubblica in an interview also published Monday. "He was the priest: funny, caring towards me, a little boy without a family, whose mother was depressed after being stabbed by my father while she was pregnant with me. He should have protected me and instead he perceived my weakness, the void, and he took advantage of it. He raped me for four years," the author continued.
"He did the same with impunity to another 100 boys," he added.
"In Switzerland things have changed, but in France and Italy as far as I know they are still much the same," Pittet said.
"This is why the pope's words are important. Because there are pedophiles in the parishes, but also in the upper ranks that act as if nothing had happened, they move the pedophile priests to another church as if this might resolve the problem. They keep quiet and new children become victims." Pittet told Repubblica how he met Francis two years ago. "He asked me: where do you find the strength, your missionary spirit? He was never satisfied with the answer. In the end I said: Father, I was raped by a priest. He looked at me in silence with tears in his eyes and embraced me. And now he has written such strong and courageous words condemning pedophilia, the secret that kills." From the start of his papacy Francis has repeatedly vowed to take a hard line with cases of child sex abuse as he seeks to repair some of the damage done to the Catholic Church's image by a long series of clergy paedophilia scandals in many parts of the world in recent years.
Critics have accused him of not following through.
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