MaltaMedia.com

Pope Benedict XVI will not bow to “media pressure” to meet with victims of paedophile priests, the Vatican spokesman said today, while not ruling out such a meeting this weekend in Malta, according to a report in The Times.

Such meetings have “always taken place in an atmosphere of contemplation and discretion” and the pontiff does not want to hold any “under media pressure, with little opportunity to listen,” Federico Lombardi told a news conference. “The Pope has already said he was prepared to meet (abuse victims) as he has done in the past,” in the United States and Australia in 2008, Lombardi told the Vatican press corps.

No such encounter is on the Pope’s “already very tight” programme for the visit, Lombardi said, while adding that he would neither announce one nor rule one out. “Obviously the Pope meets whomever he wants, it depends on the circumstances, but don’t hold out great hopes” of a meeting with victims in Malta, Lombardi told the news conference.

Eleven Maltese victims of predator priests yesterday asked for a meeting with the Pope, who will visit Malta on Saturday and Sunday. Six men cried openly as they called for the meeting with Pope Benedict XVI to discuss sexual and physical abuse they claim to have suffered at the hands of clergy as children growing up in an orphanage, The Times said.

Tears streamed down their cheeks and they covered their faces with their hands as one of them, Lawrence Grech, called on the Pope to condemn abuse by local clergy during this weekend’s visit to Malta, the report said. “This gesture would be of great help to us,” Mr Grech, one of 10 men testifying in a seven-year-old court case against three priests, said in a press conference.

The men have also called for a private meeting with Archbishop Paul Cremona “to help us heal from the pain we went through and are still suffering”. In a short statement, the Curia said Mgr Cremona “gladly accepted to meet them without any prejudice to the proceedings” both in court and before the Church’s Response Team.