Candles will be lit in churches across Ireland to mark the Feb 15th 2019 commemoration of the annual Day of Prayer for Survivors and Victims of Sexual Abuse.

“In lighting these candles we will bring to mind our brothers and sisters, and their families, who have been left with a lifelong suffering as a result of abuse, whose trust was so deeply betrayed and whose faith has been so cruelly tested within the sanctity of the Church by perpetrators of abuse,” said Armagh Archbishop Eamon Martin, the Primate of All Ireland.

This will be the third year the day of prayer is observed, and this year comes a week before the Vatican summit on sex abuse, which takes place in Rome Feb. 21-24.

Martin encouraged parishes to light the candles during the Vatican meeting, saying he was convinced “that prayer and outreach to survivors of abuse is a modern-day corporal and spiritual work of mercy.”