Archbishop asks for forgiveness

A week after two priests were found guilty of sexually abusing boys in their care, Archbishop Paul Cremona yesterday met most of the victims and asked for forgiveness for the suffering they endured.

“I asked for forgiveness on behalf of the Church for the suffering they went through and I also asked forgiveness for the long time it took (the Response Team) to investigate the cases,” Mgr Cremona said, visibly moved by the meeting at his residence in Attard during which the victims recalled what they went through.

For more than an hour, Mgr Cremona met eight of the 11 victims, who were accompanied by their lawyer, Patrick Valentino, and also prayed with them.

Speaking to the media alone, Mgr Cremona said that Dr Valentino asked for a specific meeting to discuss financial compensation for the victims. This will be held on Wednesday.

Quoting the late Pope John Paul II, Mgr Cremona said covering up mistakes would only lead the Church to commit the same mistakes. “It is only when the mistakes come out in the open that the healing process can start,” Mgr Cremona said.

The Maltese Church, he added, had passed on its findings into investigations on sexual abuse by a fourth priest, Fr Conrad Sciberras, to the Vatican for its decision. The Curia’s Response Team had confirmed that abuse allegations against Fr Sciberras were founded and the case was also investigated by a Church Tribunal.

The Vatican has already defrocked Carmelo Pulis and is looking into the case of Fr Francesco Scerri, known as Godwin, after analysing the conclusions of the Church Tribunal.

Mr Pulis and Fr Scerri were found guilty by the Magistrates’ Court, which sentenced them to six and five years in jail respectively. They filed an appeal yesterday.

A third priest, Bro. Joseph Bonett, who was also facing criminal proceedings died in January.

Mgr Cremona said he understood the emphasis placed on this case because priests were involved but urged the media to focus on child abuse in general because there were many more children who suffered abuse.

Speaking on the steps of the Archbishop’s residence just after the meeting ended, Dr Valentino said criminal proceedings against Fr Sciberras were never taken because the charges would have been time-barred.

He said Archbishop Cremona apologised for all that happened, more so because the abuse took place in a Church home.

“The Archbishop apologised for the time taken by the Response Team to investigate the cases and said the Church was changing the way allegations of abuse are investigated, including the setting up of two committees to conduct investigations,” Dr Valentino said.

Financial compensation to the victims, he added, would be discussed at a meeting with the Church authorities next week.

One of the victims who has fronted the group, Lawrence Grech, said the meeting was positive. “When the Archbishop personally apologised I told him he had nothing to apologise for because he had done nothing to us. I want an apology from Fr Pulis,” he said.

Mr Grech said the abuse they had suffered was wrong but insisted the victims did not want to tarnish all priests.

During the meeting, other matters were also discussed, such as the lack of adequate structures in the country to cater for 18-year-olds who would have left orphanages but had nowhere to live.

One of the victims also raised the issue of fostering and insisted it was important to place unwanted children with families rather than leave them in orphanages.

When asked for his reaction to the sex abuse scandal, a spokesman for Gozo Bishop Mario Grech submitted a list of quotations on the subject from various homilies and statements made by the Bishop since 2006.

In the latest declaration made last week during a meeting of the College of Parish Priests, Mgr Grech asked parish priests to urge people who allege sexual abuse of minors to report their case to him and to the police.

Mgr Grech unreservedley condemned abuse of minors, especially that perpetrated by priests, and described them as “ugly scandals” that destroyed the Church’s credibility.

The spokesman also clarified that Mgr Grech was not a member of the Curia’s Response Team in the 2003 case that acquitted Mr Pulis, then a priest, of sex abuse after being caught in a compromising position with a 15-year-old boy by a careworker.

“However, Bishop Grech was on the Response Team when the case was presented again. In the course of this second inquiry, Bishop Grech resigned from his post in November 2005 when he was nominated Bishop,” the spokesman said.