Open Letter To Pope Francis From Survivors Of Clergy And Religious Child Sexual Abuse In The Catholic Church

His Holiness Pope Francis
Casa Santa Marta
00120 Vatican City State
Your Holiness, tēnā koe!
Warm greetings from Aotearoa New Zealand.
We wrote to you on 2 September 2022 – copy of letter attached.
We expressed our concerns about victims and survivors of clerical and religious child sexual assault in the New Zealand Catholic Church being denied justice by the Bishops and Congregational Leaders of your Church.
We informed you of ongoing coverup and denial of credible complaints of clerical abuse and child sexual assault through a secretive A Path to Healing/ Te Houhanga Rongo redress process.
We asked if you would instruct your bishops and congregational leaders in New Zealand to initiate an urgent, independent, transparent, and external audit of their redress and safeguarding system.
We are disappointed to not have had the courtesy of a reply or acknowledgement of our letter.
While we are pleased this audit might proceed, unfortunately, in the meantime the situation has worsened due to the continued denials of evident claims by survivors on account of a process that remains in the strictest secrecy.
As a result, in the New Zealand Catholic Church victims and survivors remain without justice and healing. Abusers remain in ministry. Children remain at risk and your Church continues to be brought into disrepute by such an unjust system.
Hence, our Open Letter in the hope that you will hear us and compel the leaders of your Church in New Zealand to respect your calls for openness and transparency, and change their deplorable system that permits this abuse, coverup, secrecy and denial.
Sincerely,
SNAP Aotearoa

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