Pope begs forgiveness for "sacrilegious cult" of Church sexual abuse


VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis told victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clerics the Church should "weep and make reparation" for crimes he said had taken on the dimensions of a sacrilegious cult.

"For some time now I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering," he said in his strongest comments yet on the crimes, delivered in the homily of a Mass with adult victims on Monday. "So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realised that Jesus was looking."

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