Pope Leo XIV addressed a crowd of approximately 150,000 people in a field near the Catholic shrine of Lourdes on Sunday during his four-day visit to France, urging the Catholic Church to reckon with its past. The pontiff spoke of the need to heal “deep wounds, infidelities and painful errors” within the institution, though he did not explicitly mention sexual abuse scandals in France. The pope met privately with seven survivors of child sexual abuse by French clergy following an open-air morning mass. According to the survivors who spoke publicly afterward, the pontiff listened to their accounts, was apprised of their individual cases, and acknowledged that additional measures were necessary to address the scandal.
The visit comes amid ongoing reckoning with abuse allegations in French Catholic institutions. An independent inquiry completed in 2021 estimated that approximately 330,000 children experienced sexual abuse over seven decades by priests or other Catholic figures, with crimes reportedly concealed through systematic institutional silence. France’s Catholic bishops conference has committed to providing compensation, and an official reparations authority reported that around 2,000 individuals have sought compensation for abuse by clergy or church representatives.
During his homily, the pope also addressed medically assisted dying, characterizing it as immoral “false compassion” in accordance with Catholic Church teaching on the protection of human life from conception to natural death. This statement came following France’s recent adoption of legislation permitting aid in dying for incurably ill adults, making the country one of a small number of nations with such laws.
The visit also highlighted ongoing abuse-related controversies within the Church. Mosaics created by Jesuit priest Marko Rupnik, a prominent Catholic artist, were covered at the Lourdes shrine after the bishop ordered them boarded up. Rupnik is currently on trial in Vatican court, accused by more than two dozen women of psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse spanning from the 1990s onward. Some abuse survivors voiced skepticism about the visit’s impact, publishing an open letter criticizing the selection of survivors meeting with the pope and expressing doubt that the papal visit would produce meaningful institutional change.
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