Pope Leo XIV addressed a gathering of approximately 150,000 people near the Lourdes shrine, calling on the Catholic Church to acknowledge and address internal harm within its institutions. The pope spoke of the need for humility and spiritual purification but did not explicitly reference the sexual abuse scandals that have affected the French church, which according to a 2021 independent inquiry, involved the abuse of approximately 330,000 children over seven decades.
Following an open-air mass at Lourdes, the pope held private meetings with seven survivors of child sexual abuse by French clergy members. The survivors indicated that the pope listened to their accounts, demonstrated familiarity with their cases, and acknowledged that further action was necessary in addressing these matters. Five of the seven survivors subsequently held a press conference to discuss their encounter.
During his homily, the pope also addressed the topic of medically assisted dying, characterizing it as morally impermissible “false compassion” in accordance with Catholic Church doctrine regarding the protection of human life from conception until natural death. France had recently adopted legislation allowing assisted dying for incurably ill adults, making it one of several nations with comparable laws.
The pope’s four-day visit to France marks the first official papal visit to the country in 18 years. The timing coincides with announcements that approximately 2,000 individuals have sought reparations for abuse by clergy or other church representatives. Some survivor advocacy groups released an open letter expressing concerns that the visit would result in insufficient accountability, noting that the survivors selected to meet the pope were chosen by the church rather than identified through independent survivor organizations.
The visit also occurs amid ongoing legal proceedings involving Marko Rupnik, a prominent Catholic mosaic artist currently on trial in Vatican courts, facing accusations from over two dozen women of psychological, spiritual, and sexual abuse spanning from the 1990s onward. The bishop of Lourdes ordered works by Rupnik displayed at the shrine to be covered to prevent further distress to abuse survivors visiting the site.
Article Attribution | Read More at Article Source
Article summary produced by Claude AI