Cardinal Ouellet's penitential pilgrimage in Ireland

From an article in the Washington Post about sexual abuse by Mathew N. Schmalz who teaches religious studies at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. :

But perhaps a fuller view of what reform and reconciliation might look like is emerging in Ireland.  In preparing for the 50^thInternationalEucharistic Congress, Cardinal Marc Ouellet went on a penitential pilgrimage to Lough Derg.  By walking barefoot and fasting, Cardinal Ouellette was undertaking penance and making reparation on behalf of the Catholic hierarchy.  In his homily at Lough Derg, Ouelette asked for forgiveness from the victims.  Nowhere in evidence were the defensiveness and evasion that have so often characterized the Catholic church’s approach to clerical sexual abuse.  Cardinal Ouellet’s efforts have been appropriately called “ a gesture,” for they are only a beginning.  But honestly acknowledging moral cowardice can lead us to a fuller understanding of what moral courage can and does mean--both in extreme circumstances and in the normal, often unexamined, course of our daily lives