A support organization for Catholic Church’s sex abuse victims in Ireland said that as many as one in four adults in the country had experienced some sort of sexual abuse, as a campaign called “Say Nope to the Pope” is planned to hold a protest event as Catholic Pope Francis visits Ireland on Saturday.
Executive Director Maeve Lewis of the “One in Four” abuse survivors’ support group said that the upcoming papal visit in Ireland is “distressing to many survivors.”
“The pope’s visit is very distressing to many survivors, retriggering old emotions of shame, humiliation, despair and anger,” said Lewis.
“The least they deserve during this papal visit is a clear commitment that the Catholic Church finally intends to deal with clerical child sexual abuse.”
The One in Four abuse survivors’ support organization — which says as many as one in four adults have experienced some form of sexual abuse before the age of 18 — is attending the alternative gathering as a form of a peaceful protest.
Catholic Church’s Pope Francis faces a struggle this weekend to reinvigorate Ireland’s confidence in the Catholic Church, in the face of multiple abuse scandals and a new generation shedding traditional mores.
Once a bastion of Roman Catholicism, Ireland is unrecognizable from the country visited by Catholic pope John Paul II almost 40 years ago, when divorce was banned and same-sex marriage unheard of.
The Church’s grip on Irish society has weakened and the papal visit on Saturday and Sunday is a moment for Ireland to take stock of the Church’s diminished role in national life.
Also unimaginable at the last papal visit to Ireland in 1979: Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who will meet Pope Francis on Saturday at the start of the visit, is openly gay.
The pope is visiting Ireland for the first time to close the 2018 World Meeting of Families (WMF) — a global Catholic gathering that takes place every three years.
The Vatican said Tuesday that the Catholic pontiff would meet with the sex abuse victims in his visit to Ireland.
The pontiff is set to address the catalogue of abuse that has dramatically eroded the Church’s authority in Ireland.
The announcement came the day after he condemned the “atrocities” revealed by a far-reaching US report into clerical child sex abuse in Pennsylvania.
-14,500 victims of sex abuse by Catholic clergy in Ireland-
According to the One in Four website in Ireland said that in Ireland, “research has shown that one in four children (27%) will experience sexual abuse before the age of 18.”
“Despite well-publicized scandals and reports, many Irish people remain unable to respond to this problem. We recognize that the effects of sexual abuse continue throughout a person’s life and also has an impact on their family, community and society as a whole. Our determined aim is to change this,” it said.
Some 14,500 people have applied for compensation under an official scheme for victims of clerical sex abuse set up in 2002 in Ireland. The figure of 14,500 child victims of Catholic clergy abuse in indicated in a report issued way back 2009.
Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop of Dublin, said the papal visit would be marked by anxiety about the Church in Ireland.
The pope will go to Archbishop Martin’s pro-Cathedral in Dublin on Saturday and pray in a chapel dedicated to abuse survivors.
“My hope is that he will speak kindly but also speak frankly. The recent history of the Church in Ireland had its moments of real darkness,” the primate of Ireland said in his homily on Sunday.
“It is not enough just to say sorry. Structures that permit or facilitate abuse must be broken down and broken down forever,” he said.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said the Irish Church had “recognized its failures” and had implemented measures to prevent recurrences.
Pope Francis’s visit is “a journey of hope, to help the Church in Ireland,” he said.
“We can really change and we can build a society in which the children and the vulnerable persons are secure.”
– ‘Nope to the Pope’ –
Francis will address the WMF at Croke Park, the 82,000-capacity Gaelic games stadium, on Saturday.
On Sunday, he will visit the rural Knock shrine before the Phoenix Park mass.
However, the “Say Nope to the Pope” campaign saw people snap up some of the 500,000 free tickets with no intention of going, as a form of peaceful protest.
They will hold a separate event in the city center.
– ‘Dark chapter of abuse and cover-up’ –
The highlight of the pope’s visit is a giant mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park on Sunday.
Some 500,000 are expected to attend: a tenth of the population.
Though still a huge crowd, the comparison with John Paul II’s visit illustrates how times have changed.
In 1979, 1.5 million saw John Paul II in Phoenix Park, a third of the population at the time and probably the largest-ever gathering in Irish history.
Irish society has very publicly rejected Church teaching in two recent referendums.
In 2015, 62 percent voted in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage.
And this year on May 25, 66 percent voted in favor of lifting the constitutional ban on abortion imposed after a referendum in 1983.
These were seen as watershed moments, but for some they confirmed a change in Irish society that had long since taken place.
At an annual national commemoration service on Sunday, Agriculture Minister Michael Creed praised the widening split between Church and state.
“The Church assumed control of social policy with the aid of an acquiescent government and a cowed people,” he said.
“This dark chapter of abuse and cover-up has seen a deep rift emerge between many of the faithful and the official Church.
“The steady separation of Church and state in recent times is good for both.”
(with an Agence France-Presse report)
