Valletta, Malta, Apr 13, 2010 / 19:04 pm
At a press briefing this morning, the Holy See’s press office director, Fr. Federico Lombardi, responded to questions about the Pope’s pending visit to Malta. During the meeting, the Vatican spokesman stated that it was still to be determined as to whether the Pope would meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse.
Pope Benedict XVI’s apostolic visit to the island of Malta will take place from April 17-18, 2010. The visit commemorates the 1,950th anniversary of St. Paul’s shipwreck on the same island. Consequently, Malta is an island that has a large Catholic population and a deeply Catholic culture.
Fr. Lombardi could neither confirm nor deny if the Pope would meet with victims of clerical sexual abuse as he has done during previous papal visits. According to Fr. Lombardi, his uncertainty about a possible meeting is due to the fact that “the time is very short, and the program really intense.”
“The Pope has met many people, and in this respect, he is going on being available for that, but always in an atmosphere of meditation and discretion, not under the pressure of mass media; he wants to be able to listen to the people and to communicate with them personally,” Lombardi added.