ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV will meet with survivors of clergy sexual abuse during his upcoming trip to Latin America, which will take the American pope to Uruguay, Argentina and Peru, the Vatican said Tuesday.
The Vatican statement didn’t say when the encounters would take place or where, but said “several meetings are planned,” suggesting more than one encounter. The Nov. 6-17 trip is going ahead as planned despite Leo's Oct. 13 lung cancer surgery
which had put the trip in question.
Continuing the practice of his two recent predecessors, Leo met with abuse survivors in June in Spain and most recently in France. Ahead of the French trip, the Vatican confirmed the meeting ahead of time rather than after it took place, as had been the previous practice.
“These meetings reflect the pope’s desire to express his solidarity with those who have suffered and continue to suffer as a result of this violence, to work with them to build paths to healing that are accessible to anyone in need, and to ensure that the church is a safe and spiritually healthy place that lives out and communicates the Gospel,” according to a Vatican statement Tuesday.
Leo spent two decades as a missionary priest in Peru, and he saw first-hand the effects of abuse on victims. He was the designated bishop in the Peruvian bishops conference to hear from victims of an influential but abusive movement, the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.
The former Cardinal Robert Prevost then was instrumental in Pope Francis’ decision in 2025 to suppress the movement.
Francis’ native Argentina, for its part, has had a wretched reckoning with abuse and victims there have been demanding action from the Vatican, including to address cases in which Francis was personally involved.
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