Pope Leo presses French bishops on abuse vigilance ahead of survivor meeting in Lourdes

Pope Leo XIV urged the Catholic Church to confront its own failures and heal what he called “deep wounds” inside its ranks, hours before a scheduled private meeting with survivors of clerical sexual abuse during his visit to the pilgrimage town of Lourdes on Sunday.

Addressing crowds spread across a large field near the shrine, the pope told an estimated 150,000 people that the Church must find the courage to face its past, telling worshippers that healing those wounds requires humbly placing the institution under what he described as the Lord’s purifying gaze. He did not directly reference the abuse scandals in France that have shaken the country in recent years during that public address.

Earlier in the day, in a closed door meeting with French bishops at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, Leo spoke more directly. According to a copy of his remarks released to the press, he told the bishops they had faced with determination what he called the painful scourge of abuse of minors committed by clergy members or within church settings, and urged them to keep pressing forward while maintaining the greatest vigilance. He thanked the bishops for what he called courageous measures already taken to confront the crisis, while also stressing that clergy themselves need continued support and encouragement.

The pope’s remarks follow a 2021 independent inquiry that found roughly 330,000 children in France had been abused by Catholic clergy or lay figures connected to the Church over a seven decade period, a finding that caused widespread shock nationally and placed lasting pressure on French Church leadership to demonstrate reform.

Leo is roughly three days into a four day visit to France, a trip that began in Paris on Friday, where he met with French President Emmanuel Macron and later celebrated an outdoor Mass that drew crowds estimated between 700,000 and 800,000 people at the Place de la Concorde, with worshippers also lining the Champs-Elysees to see him pass in an open topped popemobile. During that Mass, he told the congregation that Catholics should not keep their faith to themselves, but should let it overflow so that others might be renewed by it, and he singled out young people in his remarks, describing them as representing today’s Church. He is scheduled to travel on to Metz in northeastern France on Monday to close out the trip.

Throughout the visit, Leo has also repeated calls he has made in other settings this year urging the world to reconsider how it approaches the development of artificial intelligence, a theme he has raised consistently since becoming the first American pope.

The Lourdes stop carries its own complicated backdrop. The shrine, which draws roughly 3 million pilgrims annually to visit its grotto and its purported healing spring waters associated with reported apparitions of the Virgin Mary, features large mosaic artworks on its facade created by Reverend Marko Rupnik, a prominent religious artist with Vatican ties who has been accused of sexual abuse by more than 20 women. Rupnik has not publicly responded to the accusations. Five of his alleged victims sent an open letter to the pope on Thursday, criticizing the Vatican’s ongoing trial process involving the cleric. Ahead of the papal visit, the mosaics, which stand several stories tall, were covered with large yellow tarps.

Leo has addressed the Church’s abuse crisis directly in other countries as well. During a visit to Spain in June, he told bishops there they needed to listen to survivors and provide them with reparations. Even so, some advocates for survivors in France have expressed skepticism that Sunday’s meeting will translate into meaningful structural change, reflecting a broader pattern in which papal apologies and private meetings with victims have not always been followed by the kind of institutional accountability survivors and their advocates continue to demand.

The pope’s later private session with seven French survivors of clerical abuse, held away from press cameras, is expected to be one of the most closely watched moments of his French visit, offering a test of whether this stop in Lourdes produces anything beyond the kind of symbolic acknowledgment the Church has offered in previous reckonings with its abuse crisis both in France and elsewhere around the world.