UK victims insist Papal apology on Vatican tardiness on paedophilia 'not enough'

Speaking exclusively to MaltaToday, MACSAS Founder Margaret Kennedy said: “Far from being a misdemeanour of tardiness, the policy of moving clergy, putting them in new dioceses, new countries was a worldwide strategy rather than sloppy action”.

“In this regard the Vatican and church leaders can be accused of grave neglect, sinful and criminal disregard of the normal human instinct to safeguard children and blatant disregard of adult survivors who reported and warned of the dangers,” she insisted.

“Avoid reporting has led to abuse of more children, denial of harm to the victim and re-abuse to many victims who reported the abuse to the church,” Kennedy, herself a victim of sexual abuse, told MaltaToday.

The MACSAS co-founder also took issue with the fact that in his comments, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of keep paedophile priests “away from children”: “notice how ‘laicization is not mentioned”,  she lamented.

Kennedy explained how sex offending of children had “always been a crime in the UK regardless of the causes, as well as the churches’ actions to shelter”

Yesterday, the Pope had described clerical paedophilia as an "illness" whose sufferers had lost their free will, using his strongest language to date on the church’s record on the matter.

This strong statement was made during a press briefing for accredited correspondents on board the papal plane this morning on his way to the United Kingdom for a four-day visit.

Benedict XVI had also deplored the Catholic Church’s failure to act swiftly and decisively in the past.

The pope was speaking after a UK broadcaster Channel 4 documentary this week had reported that several British priests convicted of paedophile offences were still active in the church.

Answering previously submitted questions during a 15-minute briefing, he had said: "It is difficult to understand how this perversion of the priestly mission was possible".

Pope Benedict had said he had learnt of the cases which had come to light recently with sadness, adding "sadness also that the church authorities were not sufficiently vigilant and insufficiently speedy and decisive in taking the necessary measures."

The Roman Catholic church, he had insisted, had been "at a moment of penitence, humility and renewed sincerity".

Benedict XVI had explained how his first priority was to help the victims to recover from the trauma they had undergone "and rediscover too their faith in the message of Christ".

He had added that priests at risk of sexually abusing the young should be "excluded from all possibility of access to young people because we know that this is an illness and free will does not work when there is this sickness."

“We must protect these people against themselves," Pope Benedict XVI had insisted.

Charlot Zahra reporting