Gereja Eropah gesa paderi bertaubat
bharianonline
2010/04/02
PENUNJUK perasaan menggesa Pope Benedict bertindak tegas terhadap paderi yang menganiayai kanak-kanak di depan gereja Los Angeles.
VATICAN: Pope Benedict XVI menyifatkan skandal seks membabitkan paderi sebagai satu ujian kepada beliau dan gereja ketika paderi di seluruh Eropah menggesa mereka terbabit bertaubat dan berhenti mendera kanak-kanak dari segi seksual. Paderi kanan Switzerland menggesa mangsa salah laku seks paderi membuat aduan jenayah, paderi kanan Jerman membuka satu talian untuk mangsa manakala di Denmark satu soal siasat dijalankan terhadap aduan yang disifatkan sudah lama.
Paderi kanan Austria, Kardinal Christophe Schoenborn mengakui gereja bersalah kerana beliau mengetuai khidmat bagi mangsa untuk bertaubat.
“Terima kasih kerana memaklumkan perkara ini,” kata Schoenborn kepada mangsa. “Banyak yang sudah dibongkar. Tetapi, masih banyak yang perlu dilakukan.”
Seminggu selepas Pope Benedict menegur paderi Ireland kerana silap penilaian dalam kes menguruskan paderi yang merogol kanak-kanak, seorang demi seorang paderi Eropah mengakui kesilapan, menemui mangsa dan berjanji untuk bertindak apabila mengetahui mengenai penderaan terbabit.
Mereka berjanji untuk lebih terbuka dan bekerja sama dengan polis, menyamai tindakan dilakukan paderi Amerika ketika munculnya skandal penderaan paderi di Amerika Syarikat pada 2002.
Ia berlaku berikutan kemarahan orang awam terhadap gelombang baru dakwaan penderaan di seluruh Eropah dan apa yang disifatkan mangsa sebagai cuba ditutup oleh paderi dan Vatican sendiri.
Ia diumumkan ketika minggu kemuncak dalam kalendar gereja. Paderi Switzerland pula berkata, ‘Holy Week’ adalah masa untuk bertaubat apabila mereka perlu mengakui kesalahan, mencari jalan untuk menjadi baik dan meminta keampunan Tuhan dan orang lain.
Ditanya bagaimana Benedict menangani skandal itu, jurucakap Vatican, Federico Lombardi berkata: “Pope adalah seorang yang jujur. Beliau melihat ini sebagai ujian kepadanya dan gereja. – AP
Thousands march for child abuse victims
Child abuse World
Thursday, June 11th, 2009 10:46:00
DUBLIN: Thousands marched through central Dublin yesterday to protest the decades-long abuse of children in Catholic churchrun institutions, as Irish bishops apologised anew for the “heinous crimes”. The silent marchers wore white ribbons and many carried children’s shoes which the organisers asked them to leave outside parliament “to symbolise the lives shattered in these institutions”.
Ireland’s Catholic bishops, meeting for their summer conference, later expressed their shame at the abuse perpetrated by religious orders, which was revealed in an official report last month. They asked for forgiveness, saying: “We are ashamed, humbled and repentant that our people strayed so far from their Christian ideals.”
Four survivors leading the rally in Dublin laid wreaths — two white and two black — outside the Leinster House parliament building “in memory of the living and dead” in the State-funded institutions. Police said some 7,000 people joined the march, while the Irish Times reported up to 15,000.
Last month an official inquiry led by Judge Sean Ryan reported that sexual, physical and emotional abuse was “endemic” in industrial and reformatory schools, orphanages and other childcare institutions dating back to the 1930s.
The findings of the report, which followed a nine-year investigation, have caused widespread shock in mainly Catholic Ireland. Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said he was unable to attend the march, organised by the Survivors of Institutional Abuse Ireland, because he was attending the Catholic bishops’ general meeting. He sent a representative.
After the meeting, the bishops said they had discussed the report and in a statement said it “represents the most recent disturbing indictment of a culture that was prevalent in the Catholic Church in Ireland for far too long”. “This abuse represents a serious betrayal of the trust which was placed in the church. For this we ask forgiveness.” — AFP
