Leo XIV will meet victims of VSS in the church during his trip to France

The Vatican announced on Friday that Pope Leo XIV will meet privately with victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church during his apostolic journey to France from September 25 to 28. The victims themselves will participate in preparing for this meeting.

The Holy See did not immediately specify which people would be received or at what point during the visit the meeting would take place. "Further details will be communicated later, if necessary," stated the Vatican press release issued Friday, August 7.

This announcement follows on from an approach initiated during the Pope's visit to Spain in early June. Leo XIV had then promised "additional efforts" and a "more effective response" to the "scourge" of sexual violence in the Church, after meeting with victims there.

In France, the scale of the problem has been documented by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church, whose October 2021 report estimated that 330,000 minors had been victims of sexual violence within the institution since the 1950s.

Among the sensitive cases is that of the Catholic school in Bétharram, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques region, about fifteen kilometers from the Lourdes shrine. The main victims' group, which includes more than 200 people who have suffered physical and sexual abuse, requested a meeting with the Pope at the end of May during his visit. This group wrote to the Conference of Bishops of France and the Diocese of Tarbes to request "a brief audience in a spirit of prayer, blessing, and truth," hoping to present the pontiff with proposals for supporting priests.

The announcement of this meeting accompanies the publication of the official program for the trip, and the opening on Monday of registrations for the various celebrations planned in Paris, Saint-Denis, Lourdes and Metz.

On September 25, the first day of his visit, Leo XIV will meet with President Emmanuel Macron , travel to UNESCO headquarters, celebrate Vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, and then lead an vigil with young people at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. The following day, a Mass is planned at the Place de la Concorde and on the Champs-Élysées, where several hundred thousand people are expected.

On Sunday, September 27, the Pope will celebrate an open-air Mass in Lourdes. The trip will conclude on Monday in Metz, in the Moselle region, where Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of European integration, is buried. The Church has begun the canonical process for his beatification. A speech on Europe at the Metz Convention Center and a Mass at the city's cathedral are also on the agenda.