Pope pledges action on clergy child abuse in meeting with French survivors

Head of the Roman Catholic Church holds ’emotional’ two-hour meeting with seven abuse survivors in French town of Lourdes.

Survivors of abuse by members of the French clergy, Veronique Garnier, Olivier Mardi, Jerome Guillement, Bertrand Virieux, and Jean-Marie Delbos, pose together during a news conference after a nearly two-hour meeting with Pope Leo in Lourdes, France, on September 27, 2026 [Clotaire Achi/Reuters]

Pope Leo XIV has thanked a group of survivors of clerical abuse “for their painful testimony” and “reaffirmed his commitment” to end harm by Catholic priests at a meeting in southwestern France, the Vatican said.

The leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is on a four-day visit to France .

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On Sunday, the pontiff visited the pilgrimage town of Lourdes, where he privately met seven survivors of child abuse, now adults, and promised to further efforts to reform the Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal .

The group said in a later news conference that the meeting was emotional and touching.

“When he saw the state I was in, he took me into his arms,” survivor Jean-Marie Delbos said, adding, “It was an extraordinary moment.”

The 80-year-old was abused as a pupil at the nearby boarding school of Notre-Dame de Betharram, where staff have been accused of physical and sexual abuse over several decades.

The survivors said they felt heard and that they were impressed by Leo’s compassion and knowledge of their individual cases.

But they hoped the words would be accompanied by action.

Jerome Guillement, who has written about a priest abusing him as a teenager, said at the news conference that the pope understood the “systemic” nature of sexual abuse in the Church.

“From his point of view, the perpetrators are individuals, but what allows it to continue is the systemic dimension within the institution,” he said.

“He certainly believes that the Church has done a great deal in France, but he also believes that the Church in France still has a tremendous amount left to do.”

Pope Leo participates in a candlelight procession at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes on September 27, 2026, as part of his four-day apostolic journey to France [Stephane Mahe/Reuters]

Local leaders hoped Leo’s visit would help repair the Church’s standing after a 2021 independent inquiry found that some 330,000 French children had been abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seven decades.

The pope told an estimated 150,000 people gathered for a Mass in a field near the famed Catholic shrine in Lourdes earlier on Sunday that the Church must have the courage to face its past.

Veronique Garnier, another survivor who met with the pontiff, said she had found the Mass, in which Leo referred to abuse without directly apologising for it, troubling and wondered why she had attended.

But she said she was encouraged by her meeting with Leo.

“I do indeed believe there is hope – hope that there can be change and truly listening to us at a deep level, rather than just superficially, with beautiful words that are never followed by any real action,” she said.

Leo also spoke about the abuse scandals in a closed-door meeting with French bishops on Sunday, according to a Vatican-provided text.

Pope Leo leads a candlelight procession at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes as part of his four-day apostolic journey to France on September 27, 2026 [Remo Casilli/Reuters]

Leo calls assisted dying ‘false compassion’

The pontiff also condemned France’s legalisation of medically assisted death in July as immoral “false compassion” during his visit to the Lourdes shrine associated with miraculous healings on Sunday, his third day in France.

The pope sought to encourage people who live in “terrible pain” that they have inherent dignity that no law or algorithm can eliminate.

“What is legal is not necessarily moral,” Leo said at the Mass, drawing applause from the crowd.

Catholic teaching holds that all human life must be protected from conception until natural death, leading to its firm opposition to abortion, euthanasia and medically assisted dying.

罗马天主教教会领袖在法国卢尔德小镇与七名性侵幸存者举行了两个小时的“感人”会面。

2026年9月27日，在法国卢尔德，曾遭受法国神职人员虐待的幸存者维罗妮卡·加尼耶、奥利维耶·马尔迪、杰罗姆·吉耶芒、贝特朗·维里厄和让-玛丽·德尔博斯在与教皇利奥三世进行了近两个小时的会面后，在新闻发布会上合影。[Clotaire Achi/路透社]

梵蒂冈方面表示，教宗良十四世在法国西南部的一次会议上，感谢一群神职人员性侵案幸存者“痛苦的证词”，并“重申了他致力于”制止天主教神父伤害行为的承诺。

全球14亿天主教徒的领袖正在法国进行为期四天的访问。

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法国议会批准具有里程碑意义的安乐死法案（共3条，此为第3条）

周日，教宗访问了朝圣小镇卢尔德，在那里他私下会见了七位儿童性虐待的幸存者（现已成年），并承诺在全球性虐待丑闻之后，将进一步努力改革教会。

该组织在随后的新闻发布会上表示，这次会面令人动容。

“当他看到我当时的状况时，他把我抱在怀里，”幸存者让-玛丽·德尔博斯说，“那是一个非凡的时刻。”

这位 80 岁的老人曾在附近的圣母贝塔拉姆寄宿学校就读期间遭受虐待，该校教职工几十年来一直被指控存在身体和性虐待行为。

幸存者们表示，他们感到自己的意见得到了倾听，并对利奥的同情心和对他们个案的了解印象深刻。

但他们希望言辞能够转化为行动。

曾撰文讲述自己青少年时期被神父性侵的杰罗姆·吉列芒在新闻发布会上表示，教皇理解教会性虐待的“系统性”性质。

他说：“在他看来，作恶者是个人，但让这种行为持续下去的是机构内部的系统性因素。”

“他当然认为教会在法国做了很多事情，但他同时也认为法国教会还有大量工作要做。”

2026年9月27日，教宗良一世在法国为期四天的使徒之旅中，参加了在卢尔德圣母朝圣地举行的烛光游行。[Stephane Mahe/路透社]

当地领导人希望利奥的访问能够帮助修复教会的声誉。此前，2021 年的一项独立调查发现，在过去的七十年里，约有 33 万名法国儿童遭到天主教神职人员和平领袖的虐待。

教宗周日早些时候在卢尔德著名的天主教圣地附近的一片田野上对大约 15 万名参加弥撒的人们说，教会必须有勇气面对自己的过去。

另一位与教宗会面的幸存者维罗妮克·加尼耶表示，她觉得弥撒令人不安，因为利奥在弥撒中提到了虐待行为，但没有直接为此道歉，她不明白自己为什么要参加弥撒。

但她说，与利奥的会面让她备受鼓舞。

“我确实相信还有希望——希望能够有所改变，希望能够真正深入地倾听我们的声音，而不是仅仅流于表面，说些漂亮话却没有任何实际行动，”她说。

根据梵蒂冈提供的文本，利奥三世周日在与法国主教举行的闭门会议上也谈到了虐待丑闻。

2026年9月27日，教宗良一世在法国进行为期四天的使徒之旅，期间在卢尔德圣母朝圣地带领信众举行烛光游行。[Remo Casilli/路透社]

利奥称安乐死是“虚假的同情”

教宗在周日访问法国的第三天，前往与奇迹治愈相关的卢尔德圣地时，谴责法国在7月份将安乐死合法化是不道德的“虚假的同情”。

教宗试图鼓励那些生活在“巨大痛苦”中的人们，他们拥有与生俱来的尊严，任何法律或算法都无法剥夺这种尊严。

“合法的事情并不一定合乎道德，”利奥在弥撒中说道，赢得了人群的掌声。

天主教教义认为，从受孕到自然死亡，所有人的生命都必须受到保护，因此坚决反对堕胎、安乐死和医疗协助死亡。