Pope Leo XIV met with an organization of clergy abuse survivors and advocates for the first time on Monday, marking a difference from his predecessors, who had kept activist and advocacy organizations at arm’s length.
The meeting, which included four victims and two advocates with Ending Clergy Abuse, a global organization of abuse victims and activists, lasted about an hour.
Gemma Hickey, a Canadian survivor and president of the group’s board of directors, said the meeting with the pontiff was a “deeply meaningful conversation” that reflected a “shared commitment to justice, healing and real change.”
“Survivors have long sought a seat at the table, and today we felt heard,” Hickey said in a statement.
The group has been campaigning to universalize the U.S. church’s zero-tolerance abuse policy in the Catholic Church. Among other things, the policy calls for the permanent removal from the ministry of any priest who abuses a child.
Leo acknowledged “there was great resistance” to the idea of a universal zero-tolerance law, said Tim Law, co-founder of Ending Clergy Abuse. But Law said he told Leo the group wanted to work with him and the Vatican to move the idea forward.
Hickey told reporters Leo met with the group in his office at the Vatican’s apostolic palace, took pictures with them, and listened carefully.
“I left the meeting with hope,” Janet Aguti, a Ugandan survivor who was also at the meeting, told reporters, according to the Reuters news agency. “It is a big step for us.”
Leo has met before with clergy abuse survivors, and was the point person for listening to victims in the Peruvian bishops’ conference when he was a bishop there. But history’s first U.S.-born pope acknowledged the significance of meeting with the group as an activist organization, members said during a press conference.
Survivors said Leo told them he was still coming to grips with the enormity of the church’s scandals after becoming pope in May.
“I think he is still in a phase where he is trying to find out how to best address these issues,” said Matthias Katsch.
The late Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI also met with individual victims, but had kept activist and advocacy organizations at arm’s length.
In May 2024, Francis sat down with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell for a wide-ranging interview, and she asked him whether, in his view, the church had done enough to address the sexual abuse scandal.
“It must continue to do more,” replied Francis. “Unfortunately, the tragedy of the abuses is enormous. And against this, an upright conscience and not only to not permit it, but to put in place the conditions so that it does not happen.”
