Pope expresses 'shame' at scale of clergy abuse in France

Pope Francis has expressed “shame” for himself and the Roman Catholic Church for the standard of kid intersexual maltreatment wrong the religion successful France.

The pope spoke during his Wednesday regular assemblage astatine the Vatican astir a study released a time earlier that estimated immoderate 330,000 French children were abused by clergy and different religion authorization figures dating backmost to 1950.

He expressed “sadness and symptom for the trauma that they suffered’’ and shame implicit ”the incapacity of the religion for excessively agelong to enactment them astatine the halfway of its concerns.”

The pope besides expressed his “closeness and paternal support” to French priests successful the look of a “difficult test.’’