After two days in Paris where he drew hundreds of thousands of worshippers, Pope Leo XIV will continue his visit to France on Sunday in the southwestern pilgrimage town of Lourdes with a private meeting with victims of clergy sexual abuse. The pope's four-day trip is the first official papal visit to France in nearly two decades.
Pope Leo XIV will meet on Sunday with victims of clerical sex abuse, a day after holding an emotional open-air Mass for hundreds of thousands of worshippers and praying at a holy shrine in Lourdes during his official visit to France.
The leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics is on a four-day trip to France, a secular country with deep Catholic roots, marking the first official papal visit there in nearly two decades.
He is expected to meet privately with seven victims after promising to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.
A 2021 inquiry found that clergy or lay members of the Church had abused about 330,000 people as minors in France over the span of 70 years.
Among the victims who will meet the pope is a former pupil of the Notre-Dame de Bétharram institution, a boarding school in southwestern France at the centre of widespread accusations of physical and sexual abuse over decades.
Sunday's meeting comes a day after the US pontiff visited the southwestern pilgrimage town of Lourdes and prayed at the Grotto of Massabielle, where Catholic tradition holds that the Virgin Mary appeared in 1858 to a peasant girl, later canonised as Saint Bernadette.
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Months ahead of a presidential election with the far right surging and immigration high on the agenda, he prayed to the Virgin Mary to "obtain for France wise and generous leaders... eager to serve the common good".
"May they make her (France's) voice heard in promoting the defence of fundamental human rights and peace in the world, rejecting the mentality of war once and for all."
AFP reporters saw him perform the rituals observed by the many pilgrims to the cave: touching the rock, lighting a candle and drinking spring water.
The first US pontiff was visiting France seven months before voters choose a successor to President Emmanuel Macron.
A number of presidential hopefuls were present, including far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Édouard Philippe.
Macron did not attend the Mass but was represented by his wife Brigitte Macron. The president said in a message on X that France was "proud to welcome Pope Leo XIV and this monumental Mass in the heart of Paris".
Earlier in the day, the pope met migrants at Maison Bakhita, an association supporting refugees. Leo said it was "possible to encounter one another and to live together in dignity and peace".
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He also stressed the "fundamental role of women in building a civilisation of love".
The association said the pope's visit sent a "message" ahead of the April-May election.
Thousands of faithful watched his arrival at the site on giant screens.
The sanctuary, one of the most important Catholic holy sites in the world, receives some 3 million pilgrims each year. Catholics credit it with miraculous healings.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
