On Thursday last week, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) released a new document titled: Protecting Minors from Sexual Abuse: A call to the Catholic Faithful for Healing, Reconciliation, and Transformation. The 200 page document issues guidelines that aim to ensure that every Roman Catholic diocese across Canada develops strict protocols to safeguard minors and assist victims that come forward.
In recent days reports of sexual abuse and the misconduct and failure of Church leadership have once again shaken the Catholic Church. Yesterday, Pope Francis released a Letter to the Faithful acknowledging and seeking forgiveness of these failures and asked the faithful to work in solidarity towards change.
August 20, 2018
To all the faithful,
In the past few days once again, the Catholic Church has been shaken to her foundations by reports of sexual abuse. The extent of the revelations of misconduct, failure of leadership, injustice towards victims, is overwhelming. The reports of such evil; the devastation it has caused in individuals, on their families and on the whole Church, demonstrates that the Church is in crisis.
In recent months there has been much media coverage on the Canadian Catholic Church’s relationship with Canada’s Indigenous Peoples. In light of this dialogue, Archbishop Mancini and Bishop Dunn, of the Diocese of Antigonish, have written a joint statement expressing efforts to move towards reconciliation and healing in the relationship between our local Church in Nova Scotia and the Mi’kmaq people. Click here to read the statement or find it at www.halifaxyarmouth.org under Archbishop / Letters/Videos to the Faithful.
