Vatican City - Pope Francis prays for victims of abuse in his prayer intention for March 2023 and says that the Church must serve as a model of safeguarding and must offer safe spaces for victims.

This month’s message is dedicated to all the people who have been victims of abuse, “especially to those committed by members of the Church,” that they may “find within the Church herself a concrete response to their pain and suffering.”

Pope Francis says victims are the ones who should be “at the center of everything”; they are the ones who need “answers; concrete actions to repair the horrors they have suffered and to prevent them from happening again.”

“Asking for forgiveness is necessary,” he says at the beginning of the video, “but it is not enough”.

Listen, accompany, protect, repair
The path that the Holy Father proposes for responding to the abuses that have been committed must begin with bringing them “to light in society and in families.” It’s a tragedy that must not be hidden, neither in the Church nor “in clubs, or in other kinds of institutions.”

It is fundamental, Francis goes on to explain, that the Church offer “safe spaces for victims to be heard, supported psychologically, and protected.

As part of that response, the Church must also “offer safe spaces for victims to be heard, supported psychologically, and protected.”

“Let us pray for those who have suffered because of the wrongs done to them from members of the Church; may they find within the Church herself a concrete response to their pain and suffering.”