Vatican city: Pope Francis told victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics the church should "weep and make reparation" for crimes he said had had taken on the dimensions of a sacrilegious cult.
"For some time now I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering," he said in his strongest comments yet on the crimes, delivered at a Mass with adult victims. "So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realised that Jesus was looking." .
Francis delivered his homily to six victims of abuse, two each from Ireland, Britain and Germany, before meeting each one individually in a gathering that lasted nearly four hours, spending about 30 minutes with each one.
"I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the Church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons," he said, according to a Vatican transcript.
"Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness," he said.
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