Pope Leo XIV spends nearly two hours with abuse victims in Lourdes

On the afternoon of September 27, Pope Leo XIV met at the Episcopal House in Lourdes with seven people abused by members of the clergy and by institutions of the Church in France. Bishop Gérard Le Stang of Amiens, who chairs the Council for the Prevention of and Fight against Pedophilia of the French Bishops' Conference, also attended.

The meeting had initially been scheduled to last less than an hour. It ran for one hour and 50 minutes, ending at about 7:30 p.m. The pope listened in private to each of the four men and three women: their stories, the pain and suffering they had endured, and their proposals for preventing further abuse. With some of them he paused for a few moments of prayer.

Individual meetings and a group session

The first stage consisted of private meetings of about 15 minutes each. The pope "received many requests, heard detailed stories," according to accounts given afterward. Jérôme Guillement, who was abused by a priest, said: "I have rarely met anyone who listened so deeply." He added that the pope "is a jurist by academic training" and "was aware of my story and asked very precise questions."

Shortly after 7 p.m., once the individual meetings were over, the pope brought the seven together in a room of the Episcopal House. He thanked them for their "painful testimony" and repeated his commitment that "the evil suffered not be repeated in others." He told them he was close to them and, through them, to all who have suffered and still suffer the wounds of abuse.

Reactions from the victims

Jean-Marie Delbos, 80, was assaulted 65 years ago as a boarding student at Notre-Dame de Bétharram, and had lost his faith entirely after the abuse. He was deeply moved during the meeting. "When the pope saw the state I was in, he took me in both arms. I would never have thought it would be the pope who hugged me. It was an extraordinary moment," Delbos told reporters.

What struck him most was taking part in the Mass. "I don't go to Mass. Today I went to Mass for the first time in 60 years. Already at the Mass, when I saw the pope... I had moments of emotion. I swear to you that when he brought us together and said 'I bless you,' well, I made the sign of the cross. Even me, a notorious atheist." After the meeting, Delbos said, "each of us really felt a sense of a vision of eternity... Something really happened, it happened on earth."

Véronique Garnier, a member of the group Fe y Resiliencia (Faith and Resilience) who was abused by her pastor in Nancy, said the morning had been hard. "In the morning, at Mass, I asked myself: What am I doing here?" Her view changed after the meeting. "I felt relief because I could tell him everything I wanted to. He wasn't listening to us superficially, with nice words that are never followed by much. The change, I think, is the depth of his presence, something non-verbal, his listening, the way he took in what we told him, his reactions to what we said. He gave us hope that something can change."

Recognizing that the abuse was systemic

Olivier Mardi, cofounder of Voix Libérées de Touraine, said the pope "said he was completely shaken, deeply wounded. He spoke of open wounds, still open after meeting the Spanish victims. He was completely in tune with our stories. And I think that is precisely what is transformative."

One focus of the meeting was the recognition of the "systematic" nature of the abuse. Guillement said: "He is not naive, he knows the incidents will continue, and that we must remain vigilant. There is at the same time a very emotional side, very empathetic, very focused on emotions and on listening, and at the same time a very determined attitude, powerful when he speaks."

Bertrand Virieux, cofounder of La Parole Libérée, the group that grew out of the Preynat case, said the pope "catches the smallest detail, he was extremely attentive. I could even say he loves this kind of interaction. His non-verbal language, his depth, his listening, this has reconciled me." Virieux is one of the victims of the priest Bernard Preynat, who was sentenced to five years in prison in 2020 for sexually abusing dozens of minors at boy scout camps between 1971 and 1991.

Commitments and what comes next

At the end of the group meeting the pope asked those present to pray for him and gave them his blessing. The meeting ended at about 7:30 p.m.

The victims put very specific requests to the pope, ranging from prevention initiatives to particular institutional reforms. Mardi said, "of course he did not answer immediately, but he knows he has to work. And that is quite encouraging." Delbos "proposed dissolving the Congregation of the Bétharram Fathers," which is also present in Africa and Latin America.

The victims closed the meeting with a promise: "We will remain vigilant. Today we made many requests. We expect answers." They warned that much work with the Church still lies ahead, but said they hoped that "this time something has happened."

The abuse crisis in France

An independent investigation in 2021, commissioned by the French Bishops' Conference and the French conference of consecrated religious, documented that about 330,000 minors were abused by clergy or by lay people connected to the Church over a period of 70 years.

After that report the French bishops adopted 26 measures aimed at providing reparations and preventing future abuse, among them the creation of an independent body to compensate victims. Since then, nearly 2,000 people have applied for reparation through that body.