VATICAN CITY — Pope Leo XIV will meet victims of clerical sexual abuse during an official visit to France in September, the Vatican said on Friday as it released the itinerary for the trip.
The Holy See did not immediately provide further details about the private meeting, which comes as the Augustinian pontiff promised to further efforts to reform the Catholic Church in the wake of the global sexual abuse scandal.
“During his upcoming Apostolic Journey to France, Pope Leo XIV will meet privately with individuals who have been victims of abuse within the Church,” the Vatican said.
“The victims themselves will be involved in preparing this meeting,” it added.
A 2021 inquiry found that about 330,000 people in France had been abused as minors by clergy or lay members of the Church over a span of 70 years.
In May, a group representing abuse victims from a Catholic school near the southwestern town of Lourdes requested an audience with the pope during his upcoming visit to present reform plans for the Church to tackle abuse better.
During a meeting with sexual abuse victims in Spain, Pope Leo promised that the Church would make “additional efforts” to change.
The pontiff’s visit to France comes at a time when the Church has had to grapple with various splits on social, political, ethical and theological issues, with Leo seeking to mediate with both the progressive and traditionalist factions within the Holy See.
Starting on Sept. 25, the first pope from the United States, elected in May 2025, will travel to Paris to meet President Emmanuel Macron and tour the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or Unesco.
He will then celebrate Vespers at Notre Dame Cathedral in the French capital before holding a vigil with young people at the Stade de France.
The next day, Leo will celebrate Mass at Place de la Concorde, with hundreds of thousands of people expected to attend.
He will then travel to Lourdes, an enduring pilgrimage site for Catholics worldwide, where he will hold an open-air Mass on Sept. 27, before presiding over another at the cathedral in the northeastern city of Metz on the 28th.
It will be the first papal state visit to France since Benedict XVI’s in September 2008.
Coming after Leo’s trip to Spain, the visit demonstrates the pope’s interest in engaging with historically Catholic but increasingly nonreligious European countries that were largely overlooked by his predecessor, Francis. AFP
