Pope Francis wept as he met with victims of child molestation and abuse by priests in Chile on Tuesday.
The private meeting took place during a packed first day of the pontiff’s week long trip to South America where he will also visit Peru.
‘No one else was present. Only the Pope and the victims,’ spokesman Greg Burke said. ‘This was so they could speak of their suffering to Pope Francis, who listened to them and prayed and cried with them.’
It was only the second time on his overseas trips that the Pope has met victims of sexual abuse, although he has met some at the Vatican. The last meeting on a trip was in Philadelphia in 2015.
Burke declined to give details, but his statement came at the end of an intense day for the pope, during which he spoke of sexual abuse twice, once asking forgiveness for abuses he said had done “irreparable damage” to victims.
During his first public address of the tour Francis begged forgiveness and said he feels ‘pain and shame’ over the sex abuse scandal.
Pope Francis is facing protests as he travels around Chile over his appointment as Bishop of Osorno of Juan Barros, who is accused of covering up the abuse of the notorious paedophile priest Fernando Karadima.
A group of parishioners have travelled 560 miles from the southern city of Osorno to Santiago to make their voices heard and particularly protest against Pope Francis who appeared to dismiss them as ‘lefties and stupid’ in remarks caught on camera in Rome in October 2015.
Sylvia Aguilar Maldonado, 79, is one of the 35 to make the trip carrying signs which say “Ni zurdos, ni tontos” (Neither lefties nor stupid).
‘The Pope and the Chilean bishops don’t think about us and it really upsets us and hurts our soul,’ she said according to the BBC.
‘We are all Catholics and believe in the same God. We want to find a solution to this,’ she said referring to the ordination of Juan Barros as bishop of Osorno.
‘Sadly when we asked the Pope to remove Bishop Juan Barros, instead of helping us, he accused us of being stupid and left-wing and that is why we are here,’ she added.
‘He doesn’t even know us, so how can he accuse us of being such things? He thinks we are politically motivated even though we come from different parishes in Osorno and are doing this because we are against priests being allowed to abuse children.’
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