Did I read that correctly? For the last fifteen years the Church has been rocked by scandal over the sexual abuse of children by Catholic clergy. Fifteen years? I don't know where the author has been for the decades before the year 2000, when the scandal first broke publically in Lafayette Louisiana in 1985 and spread throughout the United States. Kids have been raped by Catholic priests for several centuries. It is not a new phenomena. The pope is asking for forgiveness from victims of clergy abuse. I am one victim who will never forgive or forget what  was done to me after serving Mass in June of 1961 unless and until the Pope takes responsibility for his and all of his successors failure to act to help heal all of the victims. He talks about several victims taking their own lives after being abused. The numbers are in the hundreds here in the United States alone.That doesn't take into consideration the countless victims who have died from alcoholism and drug addiction.