Dublin - People abused by figures in the Catholic Church and
their supporters plan to hold a solidarity event at Dublin's Garden
of Remembrance during the visit of Pope Francis.
In a tweet, abuse survivor Colm O'Gorman, who is now chief executive
of Amnesty Ireland, invited people to attend the event at 3pm on Sunday, the same time as the papal mass in Dublin's Phoenix
Park.
"I never for a moment imagined that I would still find it necessary
to speak out about it after all this time," O'Gorman wrote for
TheJournal.ie in early August.
O'Gorman says he was raped by a priest in 1980, one year after John
Paul II visited Ireland. His efforts to make public what the church
knew about his abuser were thwarted.
"Here in Ireland they used diplomatic immunity to block the case I
took against the Vatican in 1998 to try force Pope John Paul II to
reveal what was known about the priest who raped me and dozens of
others," he wrote.
There has been media speculation in advance of the pope's visit that
Francis would meet survivors. O'Gorman is calling instead for the
pope to admit publicly the cover-up of crimes committed against
children and other victims.
"In the face of such efforts to silence victims, we must stand for
truth," he said.