VATICAN CORNER

Continued… On Sunday, September 27, 2015, Pope Francis began his second day in Philadelphia and his last day in the U.S. He began by meeting privately with a small group of victims of clergy sex abuse, listening, and expressing solidarity in sharing in their suffering. The issue has been searing in Philadelphia, where two grand jury investigations revealed years of abuse and coverups by church officials. He told the victims “I am profoundly sorry that your innocence was violated by those who you trusted.” He blamed some bishops for failing to protect the abuse victims, or even worse, violating them. He then echoed such comments publicly before a group of bishops at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, pledging that all responsible would be “held accountable.” He then met with prisoners and their families at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility one of 6 Philadelphia prisons. Nearly 80 percent of the 2,800 inmates have not yet gone to trial for the crime they were charged and are detained for lack of bail. The jail has come under fire in the past for overcrowding and guard abuse. Some of the inmates had made Francis a hand-carved chair. Prison ministry has long been a special mission of Pope Francis. He said “I am here as a pastor, but above all as a brother, to share your situation and to make it my own,” he told the roughly 100 men and women detainees, drawn at random, “Jesus doesn’t ask us where we’ve been and he doesn’t ask us what we’ve done.” He said the Gospel story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples reflected the need in ancient times to soothe dusty, cut up feet, and used it to signal the possibility of redemption. “All of us need to be cleansed,” he said, adding, “It is painful when we see prison systems, which are not concerned to care for wounds, to soothe pain, to offer new possibilities.” After the speech, Francis walked along the rows of inmates sitting in chairs, shaking hands, chatting, laying hands on their foreheads and hugging a few. Pope Francis made an unscheduled stop at a Jesuit school, where he blessed a statue. Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims packed the long parkway leading to the makeshift outdoor sanctu-ary where Mass was held to mark the close of the World Meeting of Families, the multiday event with as many as 150 nations represented. In his closing homily, Francis stressed the importance of “little gestures” that go a long way. “They get lost amid all the other things we do, yet they do make each day different, they are the quiet things done by mothers and grandmothers, by fathers and grandfathers, by children and siblings.” Like a warm supper, a blessing before bed, a hug after a long day. These things, Francis said, are signs of tenderness, affection and compassion. Sunday night as he was leaving for Rome, Fran-cis said he was leaving with “a heart full of gratitude and hope.”

 

Sources: huffingtonpost.com, nytimes.com, npr.com, cnn.com, washingtonpost.com