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Pope to abuse victims: I am committed to ensuring this evil is not repeated
Pope Leo XIV meets in Lourdes, France, with seven victims of clerical sexual abuse, and expresses his closeness to those who suffer the “wound of abuse.”
By Salvatore Cernuzio – Lourdes
On Sunday evening, Pope Leo XIV met in Lourdes with four men and three women who suffered abuse by members of the clergy.
The seven victims endured abuse in parishes, boarding schools, congregations, or ecclesial movements.
Their different stories and life journeys first intersected on September 14, when they met to get to know one another and discuss the experiences, expectations, and requests they would share with the Pope.
The meeting took place at the bishop’s residence, a short walk from the Marian Shine of Our Lady of Lourdes, and lasted two hours, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Among those present was Bishop Gérard Le Stang of Amiens, president of the Council for the Prevention of and Fight against Paedophilia within the French Bishops’ Conference.
Ensuring this evil is not repeated
The Holy See Press Office released several details of the encounter.
“The Pope met each of them individually and in private, listening to their stories, to the pain and suffering they had endured—sometimes, sadly, with the complicity or silence of those who could have helped them—and to their proposals to ensure that this does not happen again. He spent a few moments in prayer with some of them,” read a statement released on Sunday evening.
At the end, shortly after 7 p.m., the Press Office reported, “the Pope gathered with everyone in a room of the bishop’s residence and addressed a few words to them, thanking them for their painful testimony and reaffirming his commitment to ensuring that the evil they had experienced would not happen to others.”
Pope Leo then expressed his closeness to the victims and, through them, “to those who have suffered and still suffer from the wounds of the abuse they endured.”
Finally, “expressing his hope that they could work together so that the community of the faithful might increasingly become a place where men and women of every age can find comfort and healing, the Pope asked those present to pray for him and imparted his blessing upon them.”
Who are the victims who met the Pope?
The identities of five of the seven victims attending the meeting are known: Jean-Marie Delbos, now 80, one of the key witnesses in the serious abuse case involving Notre-Dame de Bétharram boarding school; Jérôme Guillement, assaulted as a teenager by a priest in his parish and now a coordinator in the Qualité de la relation éducative mission; and Véronique Garnier of the Foi & Résilience collective, author of two books in which, after a very long period of silence and personal rebuilding, she recounts her experience of severe and repeated abuse by the parish priest of her community in Nancy.
Also present were Olivier Mardi, an activist and co-founder of Voix Libérées de Touraine, who, together with his brother Frédéric, suffered abuse by Father Bernard Tartu while participating in the Petits Chanteurs de Touraine choir; and Bertrand Virieux, a cardiologist and founder of the now defunct Lyon association La Parole Libérée. As a boy, he was abused by Father Bernard Preynat, the former priest who died in 2024 and was convicted of abusing young Scouts between 1971 and 1991.
The other two participants chose to remain anonymous, including one person abused by Abbé Pierre, a prominent figure in the French Church.
A private encounter
The seven people who conveyed to the Pope the gravity of the scourge of abuse in the Church were “selected” by the French Bishops’ Conference and the Conference of Men and Women Religious of France, following contact with around 40 groups and individuals.
All had put forward ideas and proposals for the meeting, and its organizers sought to ensure the fairest possible representation.
The small number of participants—which drew protests from some groups—was a deliberate choice intended to allow a substantive exchange, as Pope Leo XIV himself had requested.
The group nevertheless gave the Pope letters from some of the groups or individuals contacted by the Bishops’ Conference’s Child Protection Service.
Utmost vigilance
Earlier on Sunday morning, Pope Leo referred to the “painful scourge of abuse of minors committed by members of the clergy or within the Church” in his address to the Bishops, whom he met before Mass in Lourdes.
The Pope called on the Bishops to exercise “the utmost vigilance”, while recalling the “utmost determination” with which the Bishops’ Conference had “adopted courageous measures to respond to them (the victims, ed.), listening, seeking truth, justice, forgiveness, reparation and a firm commitment to a culture of prevention and protection against such crimes.”
This was a reference to the process of transparency, reforms and compensation initiated by the French Bishops and guided primarily by the findings of the 2021 CIASE Report.
The report was the work of the independent commission established in 2018 by the Bishops’ Conference itself, and reported that more than 210,000 minors had been victims of abuse by almost 3,000 priests and religious between 1950 and 2020.
The Bishops have raised the issue of abuse at all their recent plenary assemblies and have sought to ensure that victims who had previously denounced the Church’s indifference were heard.
“I know that some moments have been very difficult for your Conference,” the Pope said in Sunday morning’s address, reiterating the need to “continue along the path already taken, maintaining the utmost vigilance.”
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