Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Lourdes this week will be key to his message of respect for human life in all stages and conditions, which is the theme of his Sept. 25–28 pastoral visit to France. Images of the pontiff meeting ailing pilgrims will complement the trip’s official motto: “That the World May Have Life.”
But the visit to the world-famous shrine will also be the moment where he will most directly address clerical sexual abuse, a crisis that has cast a shadow over the Church in France since a landmark abuse report in 2021.
Lourdes will be the setting Sept. 27 for the pope’s private meeting with sex abuse victims and a speech to the French Catholic bishops, who continue to deal with fallout from the abuse crisis. The shrine itself has been touched by controversy in recent years due to the prominent display there of artwork by a priest accused of sexual and spiritual abuse.
In a survey conducted in France ahead of the Sept. 25–28 visit, the topic of clerical sexual abuse loomed large.
For 15% of respondents, the fight against abuse and its prevention within the Church was the topic they most wanted the pope to address while in France. It was the second-most popular answer after “peace and conflict in the world.”
The Church in France has been grappling with the repercussions of abuse in the wake of the findings of an independent commission that found that likely hundreds of thousands of children had been abused over the past 70 years.
The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) published a nearly 2,500-page final report in October 2021, estimating that 216,000 children were abused by priests, deacons, monks, or nuns in France from 1950 to 2020.
It added that when abuse by lay Church workers was also taken into account, “the estimated number of child victims rises to 330,000 for the whole of the period.”
Some of these victims will take part in a private meeting with Pope Leo at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes on Sept. 27.
According to the French bishops’ conference, the seven victims represent people abused as minors or adults in different contexts, including churches or Catholic schools.
The seven people issued a joint declaration, published in AFP on Sept. 16, stating: “To engage in dialogue [with Pope Leo] does not mean to endorse. To be received does not mean to renounce our demands.”
Five of the seven revealed their identities. Among them is Bertrand Virieux, a victim of ex-priest Bernard Preynat, who died in 2024 but in 2020 was sentenced to five years in prison for assaults on young scouts in the Archdiocese of Lyon.
According to the victims’ declaration, they met on Sept. 14 to prepare for the papal audience and to “share the fundamental questions” they wish to pose to the pope.
The encounter during the papal trip, which will also include stops in the cities of Paris and Metz, ignited controversy among several abuse support groups in France who criticized the format of the meeting and the choice of whom to include — especially the exclusion of victims’ groups. A spokesman for the Bétharram victims’ collective, which represents former student victims from the Notre-Dame de Bétharram school near Lourdes, called the decision to include only individuals in the meeting with Leo an instance of “institutional contempt,” according to InfoVaticana.
Responding to the frustration, the bishops of France have promised to hold other gatherings for victims and to accept their letters after the papal trip.
Earlier on the same day that he meets the victims, Leo will take part in a closed-door meeting with France’s bishops. Given the importance of the abuse issue to the bishops in recent years, it is likely that the pope will address it in his remarks, Cyprien Viet, a Vatican journalist for I.Media, said.
Lourdes and Rupnik mosaics
The Lourdes shrine, one of the most visited Catholic sites in the world, is an evocative backdrop for the meeting with abuse victims, since it is among the first shrines to take definitive action to cover artwork by the accused sexual abuser Father Marko Rupnik, currently on trial at the Vatican.
Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes announced in August that mosaics by Rupnik on the façade of the Basilica of the Rosary would be covered ahead of the pope’s visit. In 2025, the mosaics had been partially covered.
“My role is to ensure that the shrine welcomes everyone, especially those who are suffering,” Micas told La Dépêche du Midi. “Among them are victims of sexual abuse and assault, both children and adults.”
Rupnik’s mosaics also grace the chapel of the apostolic nunciature in Paris, where Pope Leo will stay the night of Sept. 25–26, though no public events will take place there.