Survivors of abuse by Catholic priests today renewed their calls for the pope to hand over all information on the scandal ahead of his visit to the UK.
They demanded that Pope Benedict XVI “make amends” for their suffering by going further than offering an apology.
Peter Saunders, survivor and chief executive of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said: “We need the pope to say, ‘I will hand over all the information I have about abusing priests wherever they are in the world. I will hand it over to the authorities of the countries where these people are being protected’.”
The pope is widely expected to meet child abuse victims during his four-day visit. But the survivors at a news conference in central London today said they had not heard of anyone being offered a meeting with him.
The survivors were divided on whether they would like to meet the pontiff during his visit.
Margaret Kennedy (57), from Dublin, said she would like to talk to him but did not want a secretive meeting behind closed doors.
“Some survivors do want to meet the pope and some want to tell him quite strongly how they feel. Some want to engage with the pope,” she said. “(But) we have been refused three times access to the pope. This means the only way survivors can meet the pope is by protesting in the street or behind closed doors, where it’s orchestrated, managed, controlled. Abuse is about control.
“The pope is saying ‘you come to me and you don’t tell anyone what I tell you’. It’s secret, secret, secret.”
She demanded “truth, justice and accountability” from the pope. “We don’t want to hear another apology.”
The survivors also called on the Catholic Church to provide better funding for the support of victims of abuse.
Ms Kennedy said the Church provides only £2,000 a year in funding for her organisation, Ministry and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors. "When you think £20 million is being spent on this visit, you wonder where that £20 million is going.”
Pope Benedict, who is making the first State visit by a pope to the UK, will be greeted on arrival in Scotland tomorrow at Holyrood House in Edinburgh by Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh. He will say Mass at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow tomorrow afternoon.
PA