Monday 07 July 2014 16.10 Pope Francis met survivors of clerical child sexual abuse, including two Irish victims, in the Vatican today, in the first such meetings.
They took place in the guest house inside the Vatican where the Pontiff lives.
They followed sharp exchanges earlier this year between UN panels and the Holy See over the Catholic Church's cover-ups of many abuse scandals.
He held one-to-one meetings with six guests: a female and a male survivor each from Ireland, England and Germany.
Ahead of the meetings, he invited them to his morning mass, which was to be attended by the recently-established Vatican Commission on the Protection of Minors.
It is understood the survivors are being supported by commission members from their own countries.
Both Irish survivors are being assisted by the campaigner and abuse survivor Marie Collins.
Speaking at the mass, the pope said the church should "weep and make reparation" for crimes he said had taken on the dimensions of a sacrilegious cult.
"For some time now I have felt in my heart deep pain and suffering," he said.
"So much time hidden, camouflaged with a complicity that cannot be explained until someone realised that Jesus was looking."
"I ask for the grace to weep, the grace for the church to weep and make reparation for her sons and daughters who betrayed their mission, who abused innocent persons," he said, according to a Vatican transcript.
"Before God and his people I express my sorrow for the sins and grave crimes of clerical sexual abuse committed against you. And I humbly ask forgiveness," he said.
The meetings came in the wake of sharp criticisms of the Holy See by two UN panels, one campaigning against torture, the other promoting children's rights, for its failure over many decades to punish abusive priests and to report their crimes to civil authorities.
One of the Irish abuse survivors who met Pope Francis today has described her meeting with the pontiff as "very important and very personal".
Marie Kane told RTÉ's News at One that before meeting Pope Francis on her own she attended a very moving mass in the Vatican, along with five other survivors of clerical abuse, where she prayed for "change".
She described the pope as a "very humble man, very warm" which made it "very easy to sit and to talk".
She said: "It was important for me to explain from a survivors point of view that it's important, the church needs to change.
"It can't have certain cardinals in power - or a cardinal in particular - that covered up abuse and silenced victims. It's very hard to think you could go back into a church that still has these people in power."
Ms Kane said the cover-ups in the church were "unbelievable".
She described the Murphy report as her first "vindication" but said it now "can't go higher than this".
She said she would like to think there will be change and that she thinks there are small steps taking place towards change and that more work going on to safeguard children in the church.
Ms Kane said the loss of faith was a common feeling among survivors.
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