The Vatican has not yet provided more details about this private meeting. The pontiff previously promised to continue reforms of the Catholic Church following the global sexual abuse scandal.
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“During the upcoming apostolic journey to France, Pope Leo XIV will privately meet with individuals who have suffered abuse within the Church,” the Vatican stated. “The victims themselves will participate in organizing this meeting.”
A 2021 investigation showed that over 70 years, clergy or lay members of the Church in France abused about 330,000 minors.
In May, a group of victims from a Catholic school near the southwestern city of Lourdes requested an audience with the pope during his visit to present plans for Church reforms aimed at better combating abuse.
In Spain, meeting with sexual abuse victims, the pope promised that the Church would make “additional efforts” for change.
The pontiff’s visit to France is being organized at a time when the Church faces various social, political, ethical, and theological disagreements, and Leo XIV seeks to mediate between progressive and traditionalist factions in the Vatican.
On September 25, the first pope from the USA, elected in May 2025, will travel to Paris. There he will meet with President Emmanuel Macron and visit the headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
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Later, he will lead evening prayers at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, followed by a vigil with youth at the Stade de France stadium.
The next day, Leo XIV will lead Mass at the Place de la Concorde in the French capital, where hundreds of thousands of people are expected.
After that, he will travel to Lourdes. On Sunday, September 27, he will hold an open-air Mass there, and on September 28, he will lead Mass in the northeastern city of Metz.
This will be the first papal state visit to France since Benedict XVI’s visit in September 2008.
This visit, following Leo XIV’s trip to Spain, shows the pope’s desire to engage with historically Catholic but increasingly secular European countries, which his predecessor Francis largely ignored.
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