Healing the [Self-Inflicted] Wounds of 'the Body of Christ'
"It will take some time" to know if unprecedented act makes a difference.
April 18, 2008 — -- There were tears in the chapel.
The 256th direct bureaucratic successor of Peter, the first pope, the fisherman from the lake in Galilee and friend of Jesus, was listening.
Five middle-age Catholic men and women were telling him the stories of how, as children, they had been sexually abused by priests -– the men they had looked up to for safety and comfort, for absolution for their souls and for access to God, their creator.
Now, the top boss -- the absolute monarch of the Catholic Church who is in charge of all priests and bishops -- was listening to their stories, apologizing, telling them of the deep pain it caused him personally and saying he would do everything possible to make sure it never happened again.
There were no cameras or recorders, and only a few other clergy present.
For Catholics, the pope is also literally the official representative on Earth of Christ himself, "The vicar of Christ," the son of God.
So his attention to their personal stories of abuse was not without weight -- and some of the victims were moved to tears.
It was also unprecedented.
No pope had ever met formally and officially with victims of sex abuse by priests, though it had been requested countless times.
"It was the first act of an official reconciliation between victims and the Catholic Church," the Rev. Keith Pecklers, an American professor of theology in the Vatican, told ABC News.
"This is just the beginning," Pecklers said. "It's going to take years and years and years to get on with this. But it can begin here."
Priests we talked to seemed greatly relieved that, at last, what felt to them like an authentic beginning of full acknowledgement for the American church's greatest tragedy had at least begun the process of healing.
"It was a terrible wound on the body of the church," the Rev. Thomas Reese of the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University told ABC. "Now that wound has been stitched up, the blood is no longer flowing, but it hasn't healed and it's also very painful."
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