Pope Leo urged French bishops to sustain efforts to prevent and address clergy-related child sexual abuse, stressing vigilance, accountability and protection. During his visit to Lourdes, he was also scheduled to meet privately with seven survivors, as France continues to reckon with abuse affecting…
French bishops took "courageous" steps when faced with "the painful scourge of abuse of minors," Pope Leo XIV told the high-ranking clerics before his scheduled meeting with survivors at the Catholic shrine of Lourdes.
Catholic church must reckon with its ‘painful errors’, pontiff tells crowd in Lourdes during four-day tour The pope has called on the Catholic church to heal “deep wounds” and “painful errors”, before a meeting with survivors of child sexual abuse as he continues his four-day visit to France.
After two days in Paris, where he drew hundreds of thousands of worshippers, Pope Leo XIV is continuing his visit to France in the southwestern pilgrimage town of Lourdes. There, he is due to meet privately with survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
French survivors of clergy sexual abuse who met with Pope Leo XIV have praised the encounter, saying he listened to them was informed of their cases and said more work needed to be done to respond to the scandal
LOURDES, France (RNS) — With clerical abuse scandals and the Vatican trial of the Rev. Marko Rupnik looming over the pope's visit to France, Leo encouraged the church to 'have the courage' to recognize its failures, while calling on bishops to remain vigilant.
On the evening of Sunday, September 27, Pope Leo XIV met privately with seven French survivors of clerical sexual abuse at the bishop’s residence in Lourdes — a meeting that had been planned to last an hour and ran to nearly two.
