It is a message that victims have waited in some cases for decades to hear.The formal apology yesterday by Pope Benedict XVI to the Catholics of Ireland for sexual abuse expresses shame and sorrow for their violation.
The pastoral apology is abject, but also powerful and important. It recognises the grievous suffering children endured.
It talks of the betrayal of trust and accuses some bishops of failing the victims.
But for all its acknowledgement of the wrongs and pain inflicted, it does not mention the cover-up.
It does not accept the findings of the Ferns, Ryan or Murphy reports.
Nor does it address the resignation of bishops.
It is deeply insulting to victims in its attempt to place some of the blame at the door of fast-paced social change which has often adversely affected people's traditional adherence to Catholic teaching and values.
It was the very practice of their religion as Catholics that directly led victims into the clutches of paedophile priests.
Is the Pope really suggesting that if there had been a better faith in Ireland, this wouldn't have happened?
He offers to meet the survivors of clerical sex abuse to personally acknowledge their suffering.
This gesture contrasts with the images that emerged from the Vatican last month when the bishops bent to kiss his ring amid pomp and ceremony that appeared to ignore the pain victims endure.
However, while his apology is welcome, it is meaningless unless it is accompanied by a real change in behaviour and a commitment to reform. Everyone knows that – except, it seems, the Catholic church, which has become adept at saying it is sorry and carrying on regardless.
There is but a woolly exhortation in the letter to church leaders in relation to the reporting of allegations of sexual abuse to the gardaí: "Besides fully implementing the norms of canon law in addressing cases of child abuse, continue to cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence," it says.
There is no mention of the Vatican's role in the abuse scandal and no guarantee of a change in approach in future.
Yet the Pope's words, clearly acknowledging the wrongs done to Irish children, sound sincere. Like Cardinal Sean Brady's apology for his mishandling of complaints against the paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth in 1975, there is humility and sorrow evident.
"Looking back, I am ashamed that I have not always upheld the values that I profess and believe in… For the sake of [sex abuse] survivors, for the sake of all the Catholic faithful, as well as the religious and priests of this country, we have to stop the drip, drip, drip of revelations of failure," said Cardinal Brady on St Patrick's Day.
Such words may not persuade those who feel strongly that he should resign for failing to report the rape of two children by Fr Brendan Smyth to the gardaí, but they do raise questions about whether the resignation of a man who patently regrets what he did will bring about the changes the church needs.
One of the victims of child sex abuse, the young woman who sued Cardinal Brady along with a priest she said raped her in the Armagh diocese in 1997, has said even she does not want him to resign. He was, she said "perhaps the best person to move things forward. Who would replace him?" she asked. "He is the best of a bad bunch".
The best of a bad bunch is a phrase that really says something about the crisis facing the church.
The loss of trust in the hierarchy is now so great that even the most faithful are starting to question the institution's ability to reform its governance.
Neither the Pope nor the cardinal have mentioned how they will deal, from now on, with the skeletons of the past.
Will they continue to fight compensation claims with the secrecy and adversarial vigour that so many victims find so hurtful?
The revelations about Cardinal Brady surfaced because a High Court case for compensation by one of Fr Smyth's victims has yet to be heard, even though it is more than 13 years since the action was started.
If the Pope and the cardinal really mean what they say, then transparency and an honourable approach to the past has to accompany pledges about the future.
True sorrow would mean that every diocese immediately publishes exactly how many cases have been taken against sexually predatory priests and how many are currently being contested or mediated on, at any level.
True sorrow would mean that every bishop gives an account of his personal dealings with paedophile or abusive priests so that parishioners know there can be no more revelations.
True sorrow would mean the church stops its highly adversarial approach to victims suing for compensation.
Many victims of proven cases have complained that their treatment by the church in civil cases is far more humiliating than the approach taken by the criminal system.
Given the right of both sides to defend their interests, the church should establish as non-adversarial a system of compensation as it can.
The church has already lost its relevance to a generation of Catholics who have no time for its teaching about contraception, homosexuality, marriage and divorce, nor for its treatment of women as second-class citizens.
But its institutionalised cover-up of paedophilia and the abuse of children brings it in conflict with a basic sense of right and wrong.
If Cardinal Brady stays in office, it must be to push the reform the church needs.
The cardinal and his fellow bishops must show in deeds and not words, starting from today, that the sickening culture of cover-up and half-truth has finally been dismantled.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to us or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that we agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
SIC: ST