Pope Leo XIV to meet abuse survivors during Lourdes visit

Pope Leo XIV was due to meet seven victims of clerical sexual abuse in Lourdes on Sunday, during the third day of his four-day official visit to France. The private meeting is part of the pope’s stated effort to advance reform in the Catholic Church following the global sexual abuse scandal. One of those expected to attend was a former pupil of the Notre-Dame de Betharram institution, a nearby boarding school facing allegations of physical and sexual abuse over several decades.

A 2021 inquiry found that about 330,000 people had been abused as minors by clergy or lay members of the Church in France over a 70-year period. Domitille Bardoul, a 26-year-old visitor to Lourdes, said listening to survivors was important and could demonstrate that measures were being taken to prevent further abuse. Leo arrived in Lourdes on Saturday evening after leading an open-air mass in Paris.

During prayers to the Virgin Mary, he called for France to have “wise and generous leaders” committed to the common good. He also urged the country to promote fundamental human rights and peace and to reject what he called the mentality of war. The Lourdes sanctuary is one of the Catholic Church’s major pilgrimage sites and receives about three million visitors each year, according to the source material.

Leo is the third pope to visit the site after Benedict XVI and John Paul II. Earlier on Saturday, the 71-year-old pontiff led a mass at Paris’s Place de la Concorde. Vatican figures estimated that about 800,000 people gathered along the Champs-Élysées and nearby streets.

The visit comes seven months before France’s presidential election. Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and centrist Édouard Philippe were among political figures present at the Paris event, while President Emmanuel Macron was represented by his wife, Brigitte.