Pope Leo XIV has called on the Catholic Church to acknowledge its own failures and heal the deep wounds inflicted within its ranks, Reuters reported.
The pontiff made his appeal before a planned meeting with victims of child abuse by priests in France.
Addressing a crowd that filled a vast field near the famous Catholic shrine of Lourdes, Leo XIV said the Church must have the courage to face its past, but he did not directly mention the abuse scandals in France that have shocked the entire country.
“To heal the deep wounds, the unbelief and the painful mistakes that have occurred in the Church, we must humbly place ourselves under the purifying gaze of the Lord,“ the pope said in front of an estimated 150,000 faithful.
Leo XIV is on a four-day visit to France, covering three cities. During the visit, he again called on the world to rethink the development of artificial intelligence. Yesterday, he gathered about 800,000 people for an open-air mass on the Place de la Concorde. in Paris.
Local church leaders hope he will help restore the Church's authority after it was announced in 2021 that some 330,000 children in France had been victims of abuse by Catholic clergy and lay leaders over seven decades.
Earlier today, during a closed-door meeting with French bishops, the head of the Roman Catholic Church directly mentioned the "painful scourge of abuse against minors committed by members of the clergy".
The pope thanked the bishops for the "courageous measures" he said they had taken to quell the scandals, urging them to step up their efforts to protect and "continue on the path they have taken, maintaining the highest degree of vigilance".
He has already apologized directly for the abuse scandals that have damaged the credibility of the Church worldwide. During a visit to Spain in June, he told local bishops that they must listen to survivors and offer them reparations.
A closed-door meeting with seven victims of clerical abuse is scheduled for later today.
Some of the victims expressed doubt that the meeting would lead to rapid change in the Church. "I strongly doubt that the Pope will solve the problem, at least not immediately. Things are moving very slowly. "It won't happen with a magic wand," Michele Le Rouen-Gagnier, co-chair of an association of victims in western France, told Reuters.
Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo, a spokesman for the French bishops, said the pope's desire to hold the meeting "shows that we cannot ignore this issue and that it must always remain among our priorities."