The Lingering Effects Of The Problem

Xavier College - Burke Hall in Melbourne, Australia

High-profile members of the campaign group Protest the Pope, an umbrella group of organizations opposing the visit, will meet Smith on Wednesday. They have planned a march on 19 September to coincide with his visit to the capital, which will culminate in a vigil in Hyde Park. Organisers meeting Smith include the g@y rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, Andrew Copson, the chief executive of the British Humanist Association, and Terry Sanderson, president of the National Secular Society. He said he would not be "lectured" by the archbishop. "There is a defensive tone in what [Smith] is saying," he said. "It is an indication of the church's fear that something will happen to bring the pope into disrepute. I think something should happen to embarrass the pope into, for example, confronting the child abuse scandal. We're not going to be kind to the Pope because he does not deserve to be respected." Although there is a rainbow coalition of groups opposing the papal visit, they have agreed a strategy that will focus on the stories of sexual abuse survivors. Organizers are planning to to fly abuse survivors into London from across the world for a press conference on 15 September, the eve of the visit. They include Mark Fabbro, an Australian who says he was s@distically r@ped by a priest at a Jesuit school (Xavier College-Burke Hall) in Melbourne in 1971, when he was 11.

Link (here) to the full article at The Guardian