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LOURDES, France: Pope Leo reaffirmed his commitment to ending abuse of children by Catholic priests in a meeting with French abuse survivors on Sunday, \u200bthe Vatican said, hours after the pontiff urged the Church to admit its own failings and heal its \u201cdeep wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a two-hour meeting with seven survivors in France, where Leo is on a three-city weekend visit, the pope met privately with each of the victims and heard proposals for how to improve the Church\u2019s safeguarding measures, a Vatican statement said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe thanked them for their painful testimony and reaffirmed his commitment to ensuring that the harm they experienced is not repeated for others,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
The survivors said after the meeting that it was emotional and touching. They said they felt listened to by the pontiff and they were impressed by his compassion and his knowledge of their individual cases, but they also hoped that the words would be accompanied by action.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe certainly believes that the Church has done a great deal in France, but he also believes that the Church in \u200cFrance still has a tremendous \u200camount left to do,\u201d J\u00e9r\u00f4me Guillement said.<\/p>\n
Leo is on a whirlwind four-day visit to \u200bFrance. \u200cLocal Church leaders \u2060are hoping \u200bhe \u2060will help repair the Church\u2019s standing after a 2021 report found that some 330,000 French children had been abused by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seven decades.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities and painful errors that have occurred within (the Church), we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord\u2019s purifying gaze,\u201d the first US pope said.<\/p>\n
V\u00e9ronique Garnier, one of the survivors in the meeting with the pope, said she had found the Mass, in which Leo referred to abuse without directly apologizing for it, troubling and wondered why she had attended.<\/p>\n
But she said she was encouraged by \u2060her meeting with Leo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do indeed believe there is hope \u2014 hope that there can be change and truly \u200clistening to us at a deep level, rather than just superficially with beautiful words that \u200care never followed by any real action,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Leo also spoke about the abuse scandals \u200bin a closed-door meeting with French bishops on Sunday, according to a Vatican-provided \u200ctext.<\/p>\n
The pope thanked the bishops for the \u201ccourageous measures\u201d he said they had taken to confront the scandals and urged them to buttress their \u200csafeguarding efforts and \u201ccontinue on the path undertaken, maintaining the greatest vigilance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leo has drawn large crowds on his visit to France. Around 800,000 people came for an outdoor Mass on the Champs-\u00c9lys\u00e9es with the pope in Paris on Saturday. He has also again urged the world to reconsider the development of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
\u2019CANNOT IGNORE THIS ISSUE\u2019<\/p>\n
Leo has previously apologized directly for abuse scandals that have damaged the Church\u2019s credibility across the world. On a trip to Spain in June, he told bishops there that \u200cthey must listen to survivors and offer them reparations.<\/p>\n
Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo, the spokesperson for the French bishops, said the pope\u2019s desire to have the meeting \u201cshows that we cannot ignore this issue and that it must \u2060always remain among our concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pope\u2019s itinerary \u2060in France included six events in Lourdes, a town in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains that attracts some 3 million pilgrims a year for visits to a shrine to the Virgin Mary and purported healing spring waters.<\/p>\n
The site is also connected to a scandal that has dogged the Vatican in recent years. The shrine\u2019s facade has a series of mosaics by Rev. Marko Rupnik, a prominent religious artist with Vatican ties, who has been accused of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
Rupnik, accused by more than 20 women, is not known to have commented publicly on the accusations. Five of his alleged victims wrote an open letter to the pope on Thursday, sharply criticizing an ongoing Vatican trial of the cleric.<\/p>\n
The mosaics, stories tall, have been covered for the pope\u2019s visit with large, muted yellow tarps. Arriving for the Mass on Sunday, Leo was driven in his open-top popemobile near the facade of the shrine and the covered mosaics.<\/p>\n
The pope, who on Friday sharply reiterated Catholic opposition to assisted dying initiatives two months after France created a legal right to die for those with incurable illnesses, again mentioned the Church\u2019s pro-life stance in Lourdes.<\/p>\n
Meeting with volunteers who help sick pilgrims hoping to find a \u200bmiracle in the shrine\u2019s waters, Leo urged them to remember the \u201cprofound \u200bmeaning\u201d of health care work.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is to care for a suffering person, not to eliminate that person,\u201d the pope said. \u201cMedicine must never become the servant of programmed death!\u201c<\/p>\n<\/div>\n