Thousands of protesters on Sunday marched in Dublin City center, Ireland to protest against what they termed as the Pope Francis’s cover-up of pedophiles in the Catholic church.
The protest was held just miles from an area where the Pope was holding a mass at Phoenix Park.
“We’re here to stand and affirm what we know and to talk about who we are and who we will be.” Said Colm O’Gorman the event organizer told British media.
Mr. Colm invited those once abused by the clergy with their friends and families.
The rally was sparked by the recent US jury report on the Catholic churches coverups of 300 priests who have abused more than 1000 children for over 70 years in Pennsylvania USA.
Similar reports have accused the Catholic Church of covering up pedophilia behavior in the past.
According to the reports, many of the abused children report their religious abusers only when they reach the adult state because as children the clergymen manage to scare them.
“Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless as time goes on we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away,” the Pope wrote in a letter where he apologizes to the victims
The pope was also criticized by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy who claims that Pope Francis lifted sanctions placed on pedophile priests by Pope Benedict XVI.
