USA: "Not enough," says abuse victim responding to Pope's plea for forgiveness for priests

Record ID: 334780

  • Title: USA: "Not enough," says abuse victim responding to Pope's plea for forgiveness for priests
  • Date: 11th April 2014
  • Summary: NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES (APRIL 11, 2014) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) JOELLE CASTEIX, WESTERN DIRECTOR FOR "SNAP," THE SURVIVORS NETWORK OF THOSE ABUSED BY PRIESTS, SAYING: "The kids are always forgotten in this. The Church does everything they can to make it about money and make it about policies and make it about commissions, but what they forget about are kids like me who where 15 years old, 14 years old, sexually abused, and my perpetrator got me pregnant and gave me a sexually transmitted disease and no one was there to help me."
  • Embargoed: 26th April 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Religion
  • Reuters ID: LVAD94CY3BGY72TMSZY77FTUZQI3
  • Story Text: Pope Francis made his first public plea for forgiveness on Friday (April 11) for the "evil" committed by priests who molested children, using some of his strongest language yet on the Roman Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis.
    Some, however, say the Pontiff's words are not enough, and that they would rather see more concrete action taken against priests accused of child abuse.
    Joelle Casteix, an abuse victim and the western director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, says that Pope Francis is simply following in his predecessors' footsteps.
    "This is the status quo. Pope Francis is the third pope to apologize for the sexual abuse of minors. He's doing nothing but continues in the patterns of his predecessors. He is continuing by forming committees, by making apologies, by asking for forgiveness, and he's also following in the path of his predecessors by not doing anything, by not punishing anybody and by not ensuring that what happened to me and other kids isn't still going on," Casteix said.
    She also emphasized that the Catholic Church has repeatedly tried to obscure the issue of child abuse by redirecting the discussion away from the central topic of priests molesting children.
    "The kids are always forgotten in this. The Church does everything they can to make it about money and make it about policies and make it about commissions, but what they forget about are kids like me who where 15 years old, 14 years old, sexually abused, and my perpetrator got me pregnant and gave me a sexually transmitted disease and no one was there to help me," Casteix explained.
    Pope Francis, said on Friday that the Church, which last month named a high-level group on the issue including an abuse victim, had to take a stronger stand on a scandal that has haunted it for more than two decades, and indicated there would be repercussions for perpetrators.
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