Pope Leo XIV to meet abuse victims on France visit

Pope Leo XIV will meet privately with victims of clerical sexual abuse during an official visit to France in September, the Vatican said as it released the trip itinerary.

The Holy See did not immediately give further details about the meeting. It said the victims would be involved in preparing it.

The meeting comes after Leo promised further efforts to reform the Catholic Church following the global sexual abuse scandal. 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 70 years.

In May, a group representing abuse victims from a Catholic school near Lourdes asked to meet the pope during his visit to present reform plans for the Church's response to abuse.

The trip will start on September 25. Leo is due to travel to Paris to meet President Emmanuel Macron, visit UNESCO headquarters, celebrate Vespers at Notre-Dame Cathedral and hold a vigil with young people at the Stade de France.

The next day, he will celebrate mass at Place de la Concorde, where hundreds of thousands of people are expected. He will then travel to Lourdes, where he will hold an open-air mass on September 27, before presiding over another mass at the cathedral in Metz on September 28.

The visit will be the first papal state visit to France since Benedict XVI's in September 2008.