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“As an Archdiocese, as a Church, we can never cease to make clear the depth of our sorrow and to beg forgiveness from those who were so grievously harmed,” he said.

O’Malley acknowledged that “one effect of the abuse scandal is that many people view a priest’s Roman collar and clerical appearance with suspicion.”

While saying that “the task is never complete,” he also said he hoped that the church’s response would convince Catholics to return to the church.

“It is our prayer that by seeing the response of the Church, and by viewing the issue in its proper context, all those who have been away will return to join with us, to make the church stronger and always a safe place for all people,” he said.

But McDaid said, “What people don’t understand about survivors is that we have a trust issue. For us to move on, we have to have some degree of faith” that those clergy responsible for the abuse “will be charged, reeducated, something. If anything, it’s worse than we ever thought.”

McDaid, who founded a group called Survivors Voice, was one of those who met Pope Benedict XVI in Washington in 2008. He said he told the pontiff he had “a cancer in his flock.”

Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org, also assailed O’Malley’s statements. “I’m very underwhelmed,” McKiernan said, adding that the cardinal “basically recycles the usual claims that we’ve heard a lot already, that they’ve experienced a learning curve, that they really didn’t understand the situation.”

Although criminal background checks of clergy and increased educational awareness about abuse are positive developments, McKiernan said, ‘it shows not so much that the church wants to do the right things here, but that they’ve been forced to do the right thing.”