In an speech to a children's rights group on Friday, Pope Francis asked for forgiveness for the Catholic Church priests who sexually abused children.

Pope Francis making his speech. (Twitter/@mashable)

Pope Francis Making His Speech (Twitter/@mashable)

Pope Francis asked for forgiveness for the sins of the priests from the members of the International Catholic Child Bureau, says The Daily Beast.

"I feel that I must take responsibility for all the harm that some priests [made]. I must take responsibility and ask forgiveness for the damage that have caused through sexual abuse of children."

Pope Francis admit that the Church was aware of the sins committed. In a Vatican press release, Pope Francis said, "It is their [the priest who committed the abuse] own personal and moral damage, but they are men of the Church."

The Pope is determined to impose more sanctions so that no more incidents will occur, according to The Daily Beast. 

However, asking for forgiveness now is too late, according to victims' group. There were no known victims of the abuse present during Pope Francis's speech. 

David Clohessy, the national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests told The Daily Beast, "We'd feel largely the same whether he made this comment to victims or someone else. It's just another attempt to dodge his responsibility to take action."

SNAP, with more thamn 15,000 members worldwide, lobby to make the church to take steps towards removing every priest accused of abusing a minor from active priesthood. They also call for the church to punish bishops who knowingly move(d) abusive priests from parish to parish and keep incidents off record.

The cases of abuse have dropped in number over the past decade, However cases of child sex abuse are still being reported by SNAP. 

"To us, when church officials talk about forgiveness, they implicitly imply that the crisis is over," says Clohessy. The crisis is far from over. 

Read The Daily Beast report here.

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