Activists, including Mannix Flynn, a city councilor and institutional abuse survivor, erected a series of posters in Dublin on August 23 intended as a message to Pope Francis ahead of his visit to Ireland.
The posters were placed at a site in the city’s Temple Bar area, where a long-running installation, Somebody’s Child, protesting historical physical and sexual abuse in Ireland’s religious and state institutions, was located.
In a blog post, Flynn said the installation was intended to send a “clear message” ahead of the pope’s visit.
One of the posters includes the message: “These panels depict the lifelong suffering and anguish that clerical sexual abuse has left on the many hundreds of thousands of children, now adults, who experienced these crimes.”
The message continued: “And we ask Pope Francis: Why is he saving the guilty? Why does he continue to cover up?”
Pope Francis was expected to meet with survivors of clerical sexual abuse during his visit, which comes a week after the Catholic Church came under renewed scrutiny for its handling of abuse cases following the publication of a grand jury report on sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses. Credit: Mark Malone via Storyful
