French victims of clerical abuse called their meeting with Pope Leo XIV on Sunday "extraordinary", praising him for listening deeply to their experiences. The Pope said he was committed to preventing further harm.
Pope Leo has promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal, and on the third of a four-day visit to France he met privately in the pilgrimage city of Lourdes with seven adult victims of clerical abuse in France.
"We sensed a Pope who was genuinely listening. I have rarely met someone who was listening so deeply," said Olivier Mardi, cofounder of an association to support former members of a boys' choir in the Tours region who were abused by the founding priest.
‘Extraordinary moment’
The closed-door meeting with Pope Leo lasted two hours – twice as long as planned, and each of the seven victims had individual meetings with the pontiff.
For Jean-Marie Delbos, 80, the meeting was an “extraordinary moment”.
"When he saw the state I was in, he took me into his arms," Delbos told journalists after the meeting.
Abused as a student at the nearby boarding school of Notre-Dame de Betharram, where staff have been accused of physical and sexual abuse over several decades, Delobs lost his faith.
He said meeting the Pope gave him "a new vision on what is the Church and the Pope, which shook me".
Systemic abuse
A 2021 inquiry found that about 330,000 minors in France were abused by clergy or Church lay members from 1950 to 2020.
Jérôme Guillement, who has written about a priest abusing him as a teenager, said the Pope understood the "systemic" character 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.
Pope Leo thanked the victims "for their painful testimony and reaffirmed his commitment to do everything possible to ensure that the harm they suffered is not repeated for others", the Vatican said.
Facing the past
The pope told an estimated 150,000 people gathered for a Mass earlier on Sunday 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, we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord's purifying gaze," he said.
Véronique Garnier, who was abused as a teenager at her catholic school, and was one of the seven victims who met the Pope, said she was troubled by the fact that the Pope referred to the abuse without directly apologising for it.
But she said she was encouraged by her meeting with him.
"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.
In another private meeting with bishops, Leo urged them to continue fighting sexual and physical violence.
"You have faced with determination the painful scourge of abuse of minors committed by members of the clergy or within an ecclesial context," he said, according to a copy of his speech released to the press. "It is important to persevere along the path you have begun."
Rejecting assisted suicide
Addressing sick pilgrims on Sunday, Leo rejected assisted dying, which the French parliament legalised in June for certain adults suffering from an incurable condition.
"We must reject the temptation to cause death under the guise of false compassion," the Pope said. "What is legal is not necessarily moral."
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.
Their work is "to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person," he said.
"Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death."
On his final day in France on Monday, Leo heads to the northeastern city of Metz near the German border where he is expected to discuss hopes for peace in Europe.
(with newswires)
