Pope Leo XIV recognizes systemic abuses in the Catholic Church in France

Leo XIV wanted to clarify his comments reported on Sunday by victims of sexual violence committed by members of the clergy in France. The Pope thus estimated on Monday that certain organizations within the Catholic Church had “sometimes […] committed abuses in a systematic manner”.

Several of these victims “spoke of systemic abuse,” the pope told reporters on the plane returning him to Italy after a four-day trip to France. “Personally, I prefer to express it differently, even if I have indeed spoken of certain organizations within the Church which, sometimes, so to speak, have committed abuses as a system,” explained Leo XIV.

Seven victims met by the Pope

The Pope met on Sunday in Lourdes with seven French victims of sexual violence in the Church, devoting to each a one-on-one meeting of around fifteen minutes followed by a collective time.

According to five of these victims, during this closed-door meeting, Leo “From his point of view, the attackers are individuals, but what allows this to continue is the systemic dimension in the institution that existed and still exists,” Jérôme Guillement, victim of sexual violence at the hands of a priest when he was a teenager, testified on Sunday.

The chilling report from Ciase

On Monday, the pope said that sexual violence within the Church also meant that “people’s lives of faith are deeply hurt, sometimes even destroyed.” “It was in these terms that I spoke to them about the way in which the Church could, in certain respects, be considered responsible, but also about the important role that it can, I believe, play in helping them find healing,” the pope added.

Our articles on Sexual Violence

The subject of sexual violence remains burning for the Church of France, five years after a shocking report from the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase) which estimated the number of minor victims within it at 330,000 since 1950. After these revelations which revealed the systemic extent of violence within the institution, the French episcopate launched two bodies for listening and reparation.