Pope Leo on Sunday called on the Catholic Church to acknowledge its shortcomings and work toward healing the profound wounds inflicted within its community. This appeal came just hours before he was scheduled to meet with victims of child abuse by priests in France.
Speaking to an estimated 150,000 people gathered near the renowned Catholic shrine in Lourdes, the pope emphasized the need for the Church to courageously confront its past. However, he did not explicitly mention the abuse scandals in France that have caused widespread public outrage.
“To mend the deep wounds, betrayals, and painful mistakes within the Church, we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord’s purifying gaze,” the first US-born pope declared on a bright, sunlit day.
Currently on a rapid four-day, three-city tour of France, Pope Leo has also urged global reconsideration of artificial intelligence development. His outdoor Mass on Saturday at Paris’s Champs-Élysées attracted approximately 800,000 attendees.
French Church officials hope his visit will help restore the institution’s reputation following a 2021 report revealing that around 330,000 children were abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seventy years.
Earlier on Sunday, during a private meeting with French bishops, the pope explicitly addressed “the painful scourge of abuse committed against minors by members of the clergy,” a Vatican-released text. He commended the bishops for their “courageous measures” in confronting these scandals and urged them to strengthen safeguarding efforts and maintain vigilant progress.
Despite Pope Leo’s previous apologies worldwide for abuse scandals, some survivors remain doubtful about the impact of his upcoming meeting with seven French abuse victims later that day. Michèle Le Reun-Gaigné, co-president of a survivors’ association in western France, expressed skepticism about immediate change, stating, “Things are moving very slowly. It isn’t going to happen overnight.”
Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo, spokesperson for the French bishops, noted that the pope’s willingness to meet victims “demonstrates that this issue cannot be ignored and must remain a priority.”
The pope’s itinerary includes six events in Lourdes, a town in the Pyrenees foothills attracting roughly three million pilgrims annually to its shrine dedicated to the Virgin Mary and reputed healing waters.
Notably, Lourdes is linked to a Vatican scandal involving mosaics on the shrine’s facade created by Rev. Marko Rupnik, a religious artist with Vatican connections who faces sexual abuse allegations from over 20 women. Rupnik has not publicly responded to the accusations, while five alleged victims recently addressed an open letter to the pope criticizing the ongoing Vatican trial.
For the pope’s visit, the towering mosaics were concealed behind large yellow tarps. Upon arriving for Sunday’s Mass, Pope Leo passed by the covered facade in his open-top popemobile.
On Friday, the pope reiterated the Church’s opposition to assisted dying, shortly after France legalized the right to die for patients with incurable illnesses. During a meeting with volunteers assisting sick pilgrims seeking miracles at Lourdes, he stressed the “profound meaning” of healthcare work.
“It is to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person,” he said. “Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death!”
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