press conference on the plane following his historic u.s. visit. the pope calling his visit to philadelphia, quote, very demonstrative, after a meeting with five victims of sexual abuse. he expanded those who could be held accountable, saying, quote, we know the abuses are everywhere in families, in the neighborhoods, in schools, in the gyms, but within a priest abuses, it is very serious. those that covered this up is guilty. good weeps, on the plane, he said he forgives the priests that have committed sexual abuse because, quote, we must forgive, because we were all forgiven. it is another thing to receive that forgiveness. the pope also says about the sex abuse victims who can t forgive their abusers and have lost
on the agenda. anne thompson, this was not what was released earlier on. it was not in his prepared remarks, but we would been expecting somewhere along this trip that like pope dbenedict dd when he visited this country, pope francis would meet with sex abuse victims and he would do so privately. he did that over in rome earlier this year over in the vatican earlier this year. he announced this morning before he began his prepared remarks to the bishops that he had, indeed, met with a group of survivors. we do not know how many, but what he told the bishops and he did so in spanish, he said i carry in my heart the stories, suffering, and pain of minors who have been sexually abused by priests and then he promised, i commit to the zealous oversight of the church to protect minors
this followed a powerful speech that he delivered to bishops and seminaries which the pope talked about meeting with abuse victims, sex abuse victims. the pope said the secrets can thno be maintained. he vowed accountability. we ve been watching the pope s movement today from the crowd where the pope will lead his final mass here in the united states on this historic visit. how did the audience react as the pope delivered his various messages? reporter: he said god weeps for the sexual abuse of children and those responsible will be held accountable, you could hear the collective jaws dropping. a few people applauded. they were listening on big screen monitors out here.
thoughts could happen. i do expect he is going to thank you about the importance of defending the traditional christian concept of the family, which, of course, means a union between a man and a him who. let s not forget that the real reason that he s coming to america in the first place is to attend a world meeting of families in philadelphia, where this subject is certainly going to come up. i don t think you are going to hear from him a specific defunsiation of a recent u.s. supreme court decision in favor of gay marriage. i do think you will hear him talk about the needs to defend the traditional concept of the family. in terms of sex abuse victims, i do expect pope frances to talk about the damage that the clerical sexual abuse scandals have done to the catholic church in the united states. i would think an especially logical time for that to come up is when he gathers the people in
christine because this pope has been much praised for many things. but this is the one area where he has been criticized. he s been criticized because he met earlier with sex abuse victims. we are 14 months into it and this is the first time pope francis is meeting with them. he s been criticized because he thinks the church has been unfairly attacked. this is an important meeting not only for the victims but for the pope himself. it s a meeting he announced on the papal plane in may. at that time, he said boston cardinal, shoun o mally was helping to organize the meeting. he s one of the members of a new commission pope francis instituted for the protection of minors to advise him on best practices for sex abuse. this is important because it s the first time we have a commission for the pope made up. there s eight people on it, four