Victims of abuse by a former priest submitted a letter to the Vatican today asking for a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI and urging him to apologise to all victims of clergy abuse.
The Rev Thomas Doyle, a Dominican priest, lawyer and longtime advocate for sex abuse victims, entered one of the Vatican's gates to deliver the letter, which also asks the Pope to dismiss any official involved in covering up the scandal and to instruct bishops to co-operate in the investigation of suspected cases.
The appeal was signed by Ann Jyono and Nancy Sloan, two victims of Limerick paedophile Oliver O'Grady, who is the subject of 17 multimillion-dollar abuse lawsuits arising from molesting children while a parish priest in California.
He served seven years in prison for abusing two boys and was deported to Ireland in 2001.
Victims of clergy abuse charge that bishops covered up the scandal, ignoring the victims' complaints and protecting peadophile priests by moving them from parish to parish each time new cases surfaced.
US dioceses calculate they've paid more than $1 billion in settlements and other costs related to guilty clergy since 1950 and more than 11,500 claims of molestation have been made against American priests over that period.