VATICAN (SE): “I read the statement this morning and, sincerely, I must say this to you and anyone interested: Read that statement attentively and make your own judgment,” Pope Francis told reporters aboard the papal flight from Dublin on August 26, in response to Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s 11-page document calling on him to resign.
 

VATICAN (CNS): The issue of clerical sexual abuse and other crimes and mistreatment of minors and vulnerable adults by Catholic priests and religious and the attempts by bishops and superiors to cover up the facts dominated the news coverage of the Pope Francis’ August 25 to 26 trip to Ireland for the World Meeting of Families. 
 

DUBLIN (CNS):  “We ask forgiveness for the abuse in Ireland, abuse of power and of conscience, sexual abuse” Pope Francis prayed before celebrating the concluding Mass of the World Meeting of Families Phoenix Park, Dublin, Ireland, on August 26. 
 
“In a special way, we ask forgiveness for all the abuse committed in the different institutions run by religious men and religious women and other members of the Church.”
 

MANILA (UCAN): Philippine senator, Bam Aquino, asked Pope Francis to pray for the he country, especially for poor Filipinos who suffer the brunt of drug-related killings. The legislator met with the pope on the sidelines of the 9th annual meeting of the International Catholic Legislators Network, held from August 23 to 26, in Rome.
 
“Holy Father, I have some letters from our religious leaders in the Philippines. Our country needs your prayers,” Aquino told the pope during a private audience at the Vatican.
 

VATICAN CITY (CNS): “The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced,” Pope Francis said in an August 20 letter addressed “to the people of God.” 
 
“But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence them,” he said.
 

VATICAN (CNS): Everything in the document, Amoris Laetitia (Joy of Love), on marriage and family life is based on Catholic Church teaching “always in continuity—without ruptures—yet always maturing,” Pope Francis wrote in a letter to Stephen Walford, author of the new book, Pope Francis, the Family and Divorce.
 
In addition, when referring to specific ethical situations, “the exhortation follows the classical doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas,” the pope wrote. 
 

VATICAN (CNS): Pope Francis will meet survivors of sexual abuse during his August 25 to 26 trip to Ireland, but it will be up to the survivors to decide whether any information about the meeting will be released, said the director of the Vatican press office.