Pope Leo XIV stressed the importance of listening to victims of clerical sex abuse during a meeting with cardinals from around the world this week, according to comments released Saturday.
In a speech concluding the two-day, closed-door consistory, the US pope said the abuse of children and vulnerable adults by priests was still a “wound” in the Catholic Church.
“Listening is profoundly important,” Leo said, according to a Vatican transcript, adding: “We cannot close our eyes, nor our hearts.”
He noted that abuse was not a specific topic for discussion during the consistory, his first since taking over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May following the death of Pope Francis.
But he said he wanted to raise it in his closing remarks, saying the scourge was “a problem that still today is truly a wound in the life of the Church in many places.”
“I would like to say, and encourage you to share this with the bishops: many times the pain of the victims has been worsened by the fact that they were not welcomed and listened to,” he said.
“The abuse itself causes a deep wound that can last a lifetime.
“But many times the scandal in the Church is because the door has been closed and the victims have not been welcomed.”
He added: “A victim recently told me that the most painful thing for her was that no bishop wanted to listen to her.”
Some 170 cardinals were present at the Vatican for the consistory on Wednesday and Thursday, where they discussed the future direction of the Church.
Leo invited them to meet again at the end of June, in what the Vatican said would become an annual event.
