Pope Leo XIV has thanked a group of survivors of clerical abuse “for their painful testimony” and “reaffirmed his commitment” to end harm by Catholic priests at a meeting in southwestern France, the Vatican said.
The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is on a four-day visit to France.
On Sunday, the pontiff visited the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, where he privately met seven survivors of child abuse, now adults, and promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.
The group said in a later news conference that the meeting was emotional and touching.
“When he saw the state I was in, he took me into his arms,” survivor Jean-Marie Delbos said, adding, “It was an extraordinary moment.”
The 80-year-old was abused as a pupil at the nearby boarding school of Notre-Dame de Betharram, where staff have been accused of physical and sexual abuse over several decades.
The survivors said they felt heard and that they were impressed by Leo’s compassion and knowledge of their individual cases.
But they hoped the words would be accompanied by action.
Jerome Guillement, who has written about a priest abusing him as a teenager, said at the news conference that the pope understood the “systemic” nature of sexual abuse in the Church.
“From his point of view, the perpetrators are individuals, but what allows it to continue is the systemic dimension within the institution,” he said.
Local leaders hoped Leo’s visit would help repair the Church’s standing after a 2021 independent inquiry found that some 330,000 French children had been abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seven decades.
Credit: aljazeera.com
