Cardinal Cláudio Hummes of Brazil told L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, he was instructed by the pontiff to send a letter to all dioceses, parishes, monasteries, convents and seminaries to inform Catholics to organise themselves into groups of "adorers."
Furthermore, the pope requested that every diocese throughout the world must appoint a full-time priest to arrange for the "perpetual adoration" of the eucharist. This activity involves the parishioners keeping a 24-hour vigil in front of a consecrated host representing the body of Jesus Christ, reported the Guardian U.K. newspaper.
The aim, the cardinal said, was to repent before God for the evil that has been conducted in the Church and to hail the dignity of the victims. More specifically, the pontiff urged Catholics to ask God to spare His mercy on the victims who had undergone a traumatic experience caused by the moral and sexual conduct of a very small part of the clergy.
Over the past few years, the Church paid an estimated two billion dollars in compensation for the victims of sex-abuse. The U.S. paedophile priest scandal first started in Boston, where it was found the priest who abused minors kept moving to new parishes instead of their crime being reported to authorities.