Vatican City — Pope Francis has condemned the "atrocities" revealed by a far-reaching US report into clerical child sex abuse in Pennsylvania, issued last week. "In recent days, a report was made public which detailed the experiences of at least a thousand survivors … the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests," the pope said in a letter released by the Vatican. "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," he said. "We have realised that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death," he added. A devastating US grand jury report published last week decried a systematic cover-up by the Catholic Church. The grand jury said more than 1,000 child victims were identifiable, but that the actual number was "in the thousands". The report is thought to be the most comp...
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