(OSV News) — Pope Leo XIV met with several survivors of sexual abuse in an hourlong meeting in which he listened to their experiences and their proposals on how the Catholic Church can promote safety and healing for victims, the Vatican said.
According to a statement released by the Vatican press office June 8, six people who had been abused by members of the clergy, who were “accompanied by Church personnel engaged in working close with victims,” met with the pontiff.
“In the course of the conversation, which lasted nearly an hour, starting from their own painful personal experiences, each of those present offered the pope some proposals to make the Church’s response to such dramatic cases more effective,” the statement read.
The Vatican said Pope Leo “listened with affection and attention” and renewed his commitment “so that the proposals received may serve as a foundation for further efforts and the Church can truly be a safe and spiritually healthy place, where wounds find comfort and healing.”
Pope tells bishops to listen to survivors
Before meeting with the survivors, the pope met with the country’s bishops, calling on them to listen to those “who have been wounded precisely by those who were supposed to care for them, including members of the clergy.”
“Faced with this scourge, the ecclesial community is called to respond with listening, truth, justice, reparation and an ever more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care. Every wounded person must be able to find sincere listening, welcome, protection and real paths to healing,” the pope told the bishops.
Earlier in the day, during the pope’s visit to parliament, Francina Armengol Socias, president of the Congress of Deputies of Spain, called for further cooperation on concrete issues.
Among the many issues, she said, were the “specific tasks to which Your Holiness made reference, such as ‘the open wound’ represented by abuses in the Church and the reparation and compensation to victims, which has been discussed so much in Parliament following the rigorous report presented by the ombudsman.”
An ‘open wound’
Armengol’s description of the abuse crisis as an “open wound” referred to a comment made by Pope Leo aboard the papal flight to Madrid June 6.
The government’s independent commission, led by Angel Gabilondo, Spain’s national ombudsman, revealed in a 700-page report, published in October 2023, that more than 200,000 minors have been abused by clergy since 1940.
It also stated that when accounting for abuses committed by lay members of the Church, the number of victims rose to 400,000.
While greeting journalists on a plane to Spain, the pope spoke briefly with Iñigo Dominguez, correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El País, and was given a USB drive containing six reports sent to the Vatican and Church officials in Spain featuring 800 testimonies.
According to El País, the files also included a list of 64 bishops and 26 religious superiors accused of concealing or covering up cases of abuse.
Dominguez also “conveyed the message from dozens of victims who have contacted the newspaper in recent days, urging him to address the scandal forcefully, as no pope has yet spoken about this scourge in Spain,” the newspaper said.
“I emphasize the fact that, not only I personally, in the places where I have been, I have always worked to establish norms, to follow them, and I will continue to do so at the level of the entire Church because it is still an open wound,” the pope told Dominguez.
Montserrat Abbey controversy
In 2021, El País published the results of its three-year investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain and uncovered 251 unpublished cases of abuse dating back 80 years.
Since the publication of its report, the newspaper maintains a database of accusations of abuse which, as of June 8, revealed an estimated 3,109 victims abused by clergy.
The abuse crisis gained significant attention in 2019 with the release of the Netflix documentary “Examination of Conscience,” which featured testimonies from victims of abuse by members of the clergy.
Among the survivors featured in the documentary was Miguel Angel Hurtado, who shared his story of abuse by a Benedictine monk from Montserrat Abbey in Catalonia. Pope Leo is scheduled to visit the abbey June 10.
The Spanish survivor recently criticized the pope’s upcoming visit to Montserrat Abbey, which is connected to several abuse allegations, and said that he received no response from the Vatican after requesting an audience with the pope in April, Europa Press reported.
At a protest outside the Holy See’s nunciature in Madrid June 7, Hurtado said that Montserrat Abbey was “ground zero for clerical pedophilia in Catalonia” and that a visit from the pope would be “controversial.”
Nunciature protests
Hurtado also joined several abuse survivors organizations who gathered outside the nunciature June 8 during the pope’s private meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.
According to El País, the organizations accused the Spanish bishops’ conference of not choosing victims who have denounced the Catholic Church to meet with Pope Leo, and instead chose survivors who participated in Church abuse prevention programs.
Juan Cuatrecasas, president of the National Association of Stolen Childhood, said both the bishops’ conference and the Archdiocese of Madrid were attempting “to whitewash” their image and give the impression that they “are doing a great job with victims.”
Defending representatives’ selection
Yago de la Cierva, layman and general coordinator of the pope’s visit on behalf of the Spanish bishops, told OSV News that criticism “is a blatant lie.”
“Survivors who met Pope Leo were chosen by the Archdiocese of Madrid, the interdiocesan center for the protection of minors and by the ombudsman himself,” de la Cierva said, mentioning the government representative who led the government’s investigation.
“Some of those that are protesting have already met the pope — Pope Francis — and are now aiming to represent all victims without their approval,” de la Cierva said, highlighting that a choice of victims who met the pope was an effort “coordinated with the government.”
“The pope never receives associations. He receives victims,” de la Cierva pointed out.
Church, government cooperation
Following public outcry over the abuse revelations, a proposal was made and passed in 2022 by the Spanish Parliament to establish a government-led commission to investigate the Church’s handling of abuse allegations.
The Spanish bishops’ conference, which was initially hesitant to establish an independent commission, made an about-face in 2022 and hired a law firm to conduct a yearlong investigation into clerical sexual abuse in the country.
The findings of the Spanish bishops’ investigation, which were published in June 2023, found evidence of 728 abusers in the Church, according to the testimony of 927 victims.
An agreement between the Catholic Church and the Spanish government that would seek to provide reparations to victims of clergy sexual abuse was signed in January.
The agreement, which was posted on the Spanish bishops’ conference website, establishes the creation of a system to provide reparations in cases where criminal action is no longer possible due to the statute of limitations or the death of the abuser.
Spain’s Justice Ministry and its national ombudsman will evaluate cases that qualify for reparations, which will then be passed on to the Church’s advisory commission. The commission will then agree or oppose the reparation proposal.
Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News. Follow him on X @jae_journalist.
