Pope Leo XIV spent almost three hours on Saturday with 15 victims of clerical sexual abuse from Belgium.
The Holy See Press Office described the pope’s meeting with the survivors, each of whom was abused by a member of the clergy as a minor, as “profound and painful.” The office said the meeting took place “in a spirit of closeness, listening & dialogue.”
The Belgian Catholic Church has been rocked by a series of devastating clerical abuse scandals in recent years, which Pope Francis confronted directly during a visit to Belgium last year, spending more than two hours with survivors.
During that visit, then Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo urged Francis in unusually frank terms to take concrete action.
The appalling revelations of clerical sexual abuse in Belgium over the past 30 years include the case of a former bishop who abused two of his nephews. The length of Leo’s meeting with survivors – almost three hours is long for any papal meeting – reflects the scale of the crisis.
Since his election six months ago, the first American pope has called for the church to establish a culture that refuses to tolerate abuse in “any form,” and last month held his first meeting with survivors in the Vatican.
That meeting came a few days after a report from a Vatican commission said Catholic leaders must do more to help survivors. Leo has personal experience dealing with claims of clergy abuse: while serving as a bishop in Peru, he came face-to-face with one of the most serious and far-reaching scandals in the church in Latin America.
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