<p>Activists, including Mannix Flynn, a city councilor and institutional abuse</a> survivor, erected a series of posters in Dublin on August 23 intended as a message to Pope Francis ahead of his visit to Ireland.</p><p>The posters were placed at a site in the city’s Temple Bar area, where a long-running installation, Somebody’s Child, protesting historical physical and sexual abuse in Ireland’s religious and state institutions, was located.</p><p>In a blog post</a>, Flynn said the installation was intended to send a “clear message” ahead of the pope’s visit.</p><p>One of the posters includes the message: “These panels depict the lifelong suffering and anguish that clerical sexual abuse has left on the many hundreds of thousands of children, now adults, who experienced these crimes.”</p><p>The message continued: “And we ask Pope Francis: Why is he saving the guilty? Why does he continue to cover up?”</p><p>Pope Francis was expected to meet with survivors</a> of clerical sexual abuse during his visit, which comes a week after the Catholic Church came under renewed scrutiny for its handling of abuse cases following the publication of a grand jury report</a> on sexual abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses. Credit: Mark Malone via Storyful</p><br />
