Pope Leo urges healing of ‘deep wounds’ before meeting child sexual abuse survivors in France

Pontiff also uses visit to Catholic shrine at Lourdes to criticise assisted dying as ‘false compassion’

The pope has called on the Catholic church to heal “deep wounds” and “painful errors”, before a meeting survivors of child sexual abuse as he continues his four-day visit to France.

Addressing a crowd in a large field near the Catholic shrine of Lourdes on Sunday, Pope Leo XIV called on the church to reckon with its past, without directly referencing sexual abuse scandals in France that affected at least 330,000 children over seven decades.

“In order to heal the deep wounds, infidelities and ⁠painful errors that have occurred within [the church], we must humbly place ourselves under the Lord’s purifying gaze,” the first US pope told the estimated crowd of 150,000 people.

Leo met seven survivors of child sexual abuse by French clergy privately on Sunday after leading an open-air morning mass at Lourdes, one of the most popular Catholic sites for pilgrims and reputed as a place of healing.