Pope Leo urges healing of ‘deep wounds’ before meeting child sex abuse survivors in France

The pope has called on the Catholic Church to heal “deep wounds” and “painful errors” before a meeting with survivors of child sexual abuse as he continues his four-day visit to France.Addressing a crowd in a large field near the Catholic shrine of Lourdes on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called on the church to reckon with its past, without directly referencing sexual abuse scandals in France that affected at least 330,000 children over seven decades.“In order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities and ⁠painful errors that have occurred within [the church], we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord’s purifying gaze,” the first US pope told the estimated crowd of 150,000 people.Leo was due to privately meet seven survivors of child sexual abuse by French clergy on Sunday after leading an open-air morning Mass at Lourdes, one of the most popular Catholic sites for pilgrims and reputed as a place of healing.Meeting French bishops earlier on Sunday, Leo said they had acted with determination against “the painful scourge of abuse committed against minors by members of the clergy or in an ecclesial context against minors”. He urged them “to continue along the path you have begun, maintaining the greatest vigilance”, according to a transcript of his remarks released by the Vatican.During a homily to the faithful, the pope attacked medically assisted dying as immoral “false compassion”, in a staunch articulation of the Catholic Church’s teaching that all human life must be defended from conception until natural death.After years of debate, France formally adopted legislation last month allowing incurably ill adults the right to “aid in dying”, joining a small number of countries with similar laws, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Canada.The pope said: “It is impossible to regard causing death as something normal. What is legal is not necessarily moral.”[ Pope Leo’s family secret: a birth in a mother and baby homeOpens in new window ]Lourdes has drawn millions of sick and disabled believers seeking a cure from its spring waters since the Catholic Church officially recognised visions of the Virgin Mary reported by a local girl in 1858.Among the survivors who will meet the pope is a former pupil of the nearby Catholic boarding school Notre-Dame de Bétharram, whose former students have recounted their experiences of violence, rape and sexual assault in what is thought to be the biggest child sexual abuse scandal at a school in French history.In an interview published last year, the pope spoke of the “crisis” of clerical sexual abuse in the church. He also said “victims must be treated with great respect and with an understanding that those who have suffered very deep wounds because of abuse, sometimes carry those wounds for their entire life”, according to a transcript on Vatican News, the Holy See’s official news site.The first official papal visit to France in 18 years follows an announcement last week by the country’s Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation that about 2,000 people who reported sexual abuse by clergy or other church representatives were seeking reparations.France’s Catholic bishops conference agreed to provide compensation after a landmark report in 2021 estimated that 330,000 children were sexually abused over seven decades by predatory priests or other Catholic figures. The two-and-a-half-year independent inquiry found that vast numbers of children were subjected to sexual violence by priests and clergy and that the crimes were covered up in a “systemic way” by a deliberate “veil of silence” in the church.[ Pope Leo celebrates open-air Mass before 700,000 people in ParisOpens in new window ]The pope arrived to celebrate Mass on Sunday morning to a rapturous reception from the faithful, who waved flags and cheered as they thronged the streets of Lourdes to catch a glimpse of him. The Holy See’s live stream showed Leo making stately progress in his Popemobile, stopping frequently to greet and bless babies that were passed to him.On Saturday he celebrated Mass in front of 700,000 people in Paris, calling for peace and reconciliation. – Guardian