Pope to apologise for clergy's sexual crimes
Sydney, Jul 14: Pope Benedict XVI has arrived in Australia where he says he will apologise for sexual abuses carried out by the clergy.
"It is essential for the church to reconcile, to prevent, to help and also to see [its] guilt," he told reporters aboard his plane. Benedict arrived in Sydney on Sunday amid allegations that George Pell, the leader of Australia's Catholic church, contradicted an internal report that a priest sexually abused a former religious education teacher, Anthony Jones, in 1982. In a 2003 letter obtained by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Pell told Jones that an internal report did not support his accusation of attempted aggravated sexual assault by Father Terence Goodall.
It had in fact accepted all of Jones's allegations.
Pell said earlier this week that the letter to Jones was "badly worded and a mistake" but denied it was part of a cover-up and on Friday ordered an independent, church-appointed panel to investigate the claims.
Benedict's
visit
to
Australia
comes
just
three
months
after
trips
to
Washington
and
New
York
during
which
he
apologised
for
the
paedophile
priest
scandals
that
have
rocked
the
Catholic
church
in
the
United
States.
"It must be clear being a priest is incompatible with this behaviour because priests are in the service of our Lord," Benedict said on Saturday.
"We have to reflect on what was insufficient and our education and our teaching [of priests]. This is the essential content of what we will say [as we] apologise."
Broken Rites Australia, which helps victims of church-related sexual abuse, has urged Benedict to "offer a proper apology personally to a group of victims of church sexual abuse".
The group says more than 50 Australian priests and brothers have been prosecuted for sexual crimes.
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