French clergy abuse survivors who met with Pope Leo XIV in Lourdes said they were struck by the pontiff’s deep personal empathy and his frank acknowledgment of the institutional failures that allowed the crisis to fester within the Church. Source: OSV News.
Speaking at an invitation-only press conference in Lourdes following the audience with the Pope on Sunday, five of the seven survivors who took part – Véronique Garnier, Olivier Mardi, Jérôme Guillement, Bertrand Virieux, and Jean-Marie Delbos – said the encounter shattered their expectations. Two other participants chose to remain anonymous.
According to the Vatican, the pope met with the survivors – four men and three women – individually and as a group. “Pope Leo expressed his closeness to them and, through them, to all those who have suffered and still suffer from the wounds of the abuse they endured,” the Vatican said.
Mr Delbos, 80, who was abused as a child while attending the Notre-Dame de Bétharram boarding school, said that despite having left the Church six decades ago, he was overwhelmed by emotion.
“When he saw what state I was in, he took me in both arms,” Mr Delbos recalled. “I never imagined it would be the Pope holding me. It was an extraordinary moment.”
Mr Guillement, who was abused as a teenager by his parish priest and now leads a survivors’ panel working with French Catholic schools, said he urged the Pope to focus on prevention “not through endless training modules or procedures, but prevention rooted in real culture change”.
He also noted that Pope Leo “has a very clear opinion” on the systemic nature that allowed the clergy abuse crisis to persist.
“From his point of view, abusers are individuals, sure, but what creates the space and allows these abusers to keep offending is the systemic structure within the institution – a structure that was there in the past, but in his eyes, is still very much in place,” Mr Guillement said.
Ms Garnier, who was abused by a priest in the Nancy Diocese, admitted she was sceptical going into the audience, especially after attending the papal Mass at Lourdes, where she felt overwhelmed by the blaring music and crowds.
In contrast, she described the private audience as “an encounter with a simple man” who “listened deeply” and “not just superficially with nice words that would never lead to anything substantial”.
FULL STORY
Moved by Pope Leo’s empathy, French abuse survivors urged action on ‘systemic’ failures (By Junno Arocho Esteves, OSV News)
