Pope to Meet With Bishops on Sex Abuse Scandal

Feb. 13, 2010

As the increasingly vocal survivors of Ireland's Catholic sexual abuse scandal wait for answers and apologies, Pope Benedict XVI will hold an unprecedented two-day summit with Ireland's bishops at the Vatican starting Monday. The Pope's direct involvement marks a milestone in a crisis that has deeply marred the Catholic Church's image in what was once one of its most devoted countries.

The meeting comes a little more than two months after the release of a devastating investigation, known as the Murphy Report, revealing the scope of child abuse by priests in the diocese of Dublin. Like previous reports on other parts of the church in Ireland, it laid out how for decades the Catholic hierarchy appeared primarily concerned with covering up the crimes of its priests. the rest