Pope Leo Meets French Abuse Survivors in Lourdes, Pledges Safeguarding Action
During his four-day visit to France, Pope Leo met privately with seven survivors of clergy sexual abuse in Lourdes and reaffirmed his commitment to preventing future harm, while survivors urged that words be matched by concrete action.
Pope Leo reaffirmed his commitment to ending the abuse of children by Catholic clergy during a private meeting with seven French survivors in Lourdes on Sunday, the Vatican said. The two-hour encounter, in which the pontiff met each survivor individually and heard proposals for improving the Church's safeguarding measures, came hours after he urged the Church to confront its own failings and heal its «deep wounds.»
According to a Vatican statement, the pope «thanked them for their painful testimony and reaffirmed his commitment to ensuring that the harm they experienced is not repeated for others.» The survivors described the meeting as emotional and touching, saying they felt listened to and were impressed by Leo's compassion and his detailed knowledge of their individual cases. Yet they also expressed hope that his words would be followed by concrete action.
«He certainly believes that the Church has done a great deal in France, but he also believes that the Church in France still has a tremendous amount left to do,» said Jérôme Guillement, one of the survivors who took part in the meeting.
The encounter took place during Leo's whirlwind four-day visit to France, a trip that has drawn massive crowds. Local Church leaders hope the visit will help repair the Church's standing after a 2021 report found that some 330,000 French children had been abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seven decades. Earlier on Sunday, the pope told an estimated 150,000 people gathered for a Mass in a field near the famed Catholic shrine in Lourdes that the Church must have the courage to face its past.
«In order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities and painful errors that have occurred within the Church, we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord's purifying gaze,» said Leo, the first US pope.
Véronique Garnier, another survivor who met the pope, said she found the Mass troubling because Leo referred to abuse without directly apologizing for it, and she wondered why she had attended. But she said the private meeting left her encouraged. «I do indeed believe there is hope — hope that there can be change and truly listening to us at a deep level, rather than just superficially with beautiful words that are never followed by any real action,» she said.
Leo also addressed the abuse scandals in a closed-door meeting with French bishops on Sunday, according to a Vatican-provided text. He thanked the bishops for the «courageous measures» they had taken to confront the scandals and urged them to strengthen their safeguarding efforts and «continue on the path undertaken, maintaining the greatest vigilance.»
Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo, spokesperson for the French bishops, said the pope's desire to hold the meeting «shows that we cannot ignore this issue and that it must always remain among our concerns.»
The pope's itinerary in Lourdes included six events in the town in the foothills of the Pyrenees, which attracts some 3 million pilgrims a year to a shrine to the Virgin Mary and its purported healing spring waters. The site is also connected to a scandal that has dogged the Vatican in recent years: the shrine's facade features a series of mosaics by Rev. Marko Rupnik, a prominent religious artist with Vatican ties who has been accused of sexual abuse. More than 20 women have accused Rupnik, who is not known to have commented publicly on the allegations. Five of his alleged victims wrote an open letter to the pope on Thursday, sharply criticizing an ongoing Vatican trial of the cleric. The mosaics, stories tall, have been covered for the pope's visit with large, muted yellow tarps.
Leo has previously apologized directly for abuse scandals that have damaged the Church's credibility worldwide. On a trip to Spain in June, he told bishops there that they must listen to survivors and offer them reparations.
On Friday, the pope sharply reiterated Catholic opposition to assisted dying initiatives, two months after France created a legal right to die for those with incurable illnesses. Meeting with volunteers who help sick pilgrims hoping to find a miracle in the shrine's waters, Leo urged them to remember the «profound meaning» of healthcare work. «That is to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person,» he said. «Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death!»
Around 800,000 people attended an outdoor Mass with the pope on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on Saturday. Leo has also again urged the world to reconsider the development of artificial intelligence.
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