In all that we do, Saint Paul counsels this Sunday, we should “avoid giving offense” but rather should “do everything for the glory of God.” Catholic bishops and other leaders Tuesday held an unprecedented service of repentance in Rome, asking forgiveness “for those who have abused in various ways,” including the actions of church management which allowed the abuse of children to continue.

"This evil is within us and severely tarnishes our testimony," Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet, head of the Vatican's Congregation for Bishops, said during the service at the Church of St. Ignatius in Rome. Church leaders have at times “become an instrument of evil” toward those they were charged to protect, he said.

The service was held as part of a four-day symposium, held at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University, on the sexual abuse crisis called “Towards Healing and Renewal,” which brought together roughly 100 bishops and religious superiors from around the world, along with child protection experts.

Representatives of six groups who were in various ways involved in sexual abuse--including the head of a religious order, a teacher, and a priest--apologized to Mary Collins, an abuse victim from Ireland who served as a representative of all abuse victims. At the end of the service, Collins asked God for the strength to forgive so that the church "may be healed."

Collins earlier had told conference participants of her personal experience of abuse. She recalled the collapse of her confidence in church authorities when the archbishop she had confided her story to focused on trying to protect the "good name" of the priest and refused to suspend him from ministry.

“We need to be vigilant in choosing candidates for the important role of bishop, and we also need to use the tools that canonical law and tradition give us for the accountability of bishops,” said Maltese Monsignor Charles Scicluna, the Vatican’s top prosecutor for sex abuse cases. “Bishops are accountable to the Lord, but also to their people,” said Scicluna, who serves as the Promoter of Justice in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. “They owe their people good stewardship.”

For his part, retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan wasn’t feeling particularly repentant in a recent interview in which he said he regretted apologizing for the priest abuse scandal in 2002 when he was bishop of Bridgeport. In the interview with Connecticut magazine, Egan said "I don't think we did anything wrong" in handling abuse cases. He said he was not obligated to report abuse claims and maintained he inherited the cases from his predecessor and did not have any cases on his watch, according to the magazine.

Clergy in Connecticut have been required to report abuse claims to authorities since the early 1970s, according to attorneys who represented numerous abuse victims.

Sources: Articles by Alessandro Speciale for Religion News Service, John L. Allen
for the National Catholic Reporter, and John Christoffersen for The Huffington Post