Pope Leo meets French abuse victims in Lourdes

The pontiff “expressed his solidarity with them and, through them, with all those who have suffered and continue to suffer from the wounds of abuse,” the Vatican said.

LOURDES, France — Pope Leo XIV met seven French victims of clerical sexual abuse on Sunday, making a gesture of solidarity and reconciliation at a shrine world-famous for its healing waters.

The nearly two-hour encounter took place at the residence of the local bishop, where Leo is staying for his two nights at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Speaking to journalists after the meeting, one of the victims, Jérôme Guillement, said, “There was something sincere about [Pope Leo]. With him, every word was carefully chosen; every word had meaning. … There were a lot of emotions.”

According to the Holy See Press Office, Leo spent an hour and a half speaking to the four men and three women individually, before addressing them as a group for about 20 minutes and “thanking them for their painful testimony and reaffirming his commitment to ensuring that the harm they experienced is not repeated for others.”

He “expressed his solidarity with them and, through them, with all those who have suffered and continue to suffer from the wounds of abuse,” the statement said.

Leo also prayed with some of the victims.

“I sensed that he was a man of commitment and also a man of resolve,” Olivier Mardi, one of the participants, said after the meeting. “He’s not fooled and knows that these events will continue and that we must remain vigilant… There was an emotional side to it, and at the same time something very powerful when he speaks.”

Five of the seven involved in the meeting revealed their identities ahead of the pope’s trip. Among them was Bertrand Virieux, a victim of ex-priest Bernard Preynat, who in 2020 was sentenced to five years in prison for assaults on young scouts in the Archdiocese of Lyon. Preynat died in 2024.

The Church in France has been grappling with the repercussions of abuse in the wake of an independent commission’s report that hundreds of thousands of children had been abused by clergy and religious over the past 70 years.

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) published a nearly 2,500-page final report in October 2021, estimating that 216,000 children were abused by priests, deacons, monks, or nuns in France from 1950 to 2020.

It added that when abuse by lay Church workers was also taken into account, “the estimated number of child victims rises to 330,000 for the whole of the period.”

The victims were accompanied by Bishop Gérard Le Stang of Amiens, president of the Council for the Prevention and Combating of Pedophilia within the French bishops’ conference.

Guillement said Leo “felt that the Church in France still had a great deal of work to do” to prevent abuse.

“We talked about prevention as part of a cultural shift at all levels … There are different opinions, but from his perspective, there’s still a systemic dimension at play,” the man added.

According to Mardi, the pontiff “responded well to our very concrete proposals; he knows he has to work with us… He said we need to rekindle hope, and it takes serious commitment to make that happen.”

Pope Leo spoke about the clerical sexual abuse of minors in his address to the French bishops on the morning of Sept. 27.

“In recent years, you have faced with determination the painful scourge of abuse committed against minors by members of the clergy or in an ecclesial context,” he said.

The pontiff praised them for their courageous measures to listen, search for truth, justice, forgiveness, and making amends, as well as “a firm commitment to a culture of prevention and protection against these crimes.”

“You must continue along the path you have begun, maintaining the greatest vigilance,” he said.

Before addressing the bishops, Leo stopped in front of a memorial for victims of child sexual abuse, featuring the brief reflection of an anonymous victim.

“[The victim] will come to understand that it was the entire culture of a system that sought to protect itself rather than protect him,” an inscription on the memorial reads. “And his turmoil continues to deepen around this question: Why can’t justice be done for him? It is so vital to him that he may finally find peace and that the tears of his childhood may cease to flow.”

At an open-air Mass later on Sunday morning, the pope seemed to allude to the clerical abuse crisis, saying in his homily that “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. Recognizing our own faults is essential to our spiritual growth.”

The pope’s plans for a private conversation with victims ignited controversy among several abuse support groups in France who criticized the format of the meeting and the exclusion of victims’ organizations.

Asked about the criticism, Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo, the spokesman of the French bishops’ conference, told journalists that “there are many survivor groups … If all of them had been included or brought together, it would have been a very large format, and it would not have had the same impact.”

“What helps us most in accompanying victims is listening to them. And to do that, you cannot have 50 people sitting in front of you. That is really what the pope wanted,” Bozo said.

The Lourdes shrine was an evocative backdrop for the meeting with abuse victims, since it is among the first shrines to cover artwork by the accused sexual abuser Father Marko Rupnik, currently on trial at the Vatican.

Mosaics by Rupnik on the façade of the Basilica of the Rosary were covered ahead of Leo’s visit and will remain indefinitely hidden.

“It had come to carry such a symbolic burden for victims that, even though many of the people who come to Lourdes are not abuse victims, for those who are, something had to be done,” Bishop Bozo said.

“If it becomes so difficult for people to come to Lourdes, people who should have a privileged place there because they are suffering, then the situation is no longer acceptable,” the spokesman added. “So I think covering the mosaics is a first step. Afterward, something new will have to be proposed, perhaps a new work of art.”