Certain organisations within the Catholic Church had “at times” committed abuse in a systematic way, Pope Leo XIV said on Monday, qualifying remarks made a day earlier by French victims of clerical sexual abuse.
Pope Leo made the remarks on a flight back from a four-day trip to France, where he met with a group of seven victims of sexual abuse on Sunday, speaking to each individually for 15 minutes.
Following the meeting, several victims said that the pope had shown “a great awareness” and had acknowledged the “systematic” nature of the sexual violence.
“I personally prefer a different wording,” Pope Leo said, while adding that he had indeed referred to certain organisations within the Church that had sometimes, “so to speak, used abuse as a system”.
