The 2021 report on abuse in France was devastating: 216,000 minors were abused within the French Church. During the pope\u2019s trip, seven survivors met with Pope Leo XIV in Lourdes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward, they held a news conference. One of them said he had lost his faith. But after meeting the pope, he said he now had a new view of the Church and of the pontiff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pope Leo addressed the issue with reporters on his way back from the trip. He explained what the survivors had told him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
POPE LEO XIV So, I would say, if that's politics, I did that, but it was not to get involved in French politics. It was to teach what the Church really believes. What he did reflect on was the state of the German Church, which has been caught up in a controversial reform process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n POPE LEO XIV Pope Leo was also asked about the rise of the right in Germany. This was his response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n POPE LEO XIV Another question focused on Russia and Ukraine. Referring to those and other countries, the pope said these wars no longer make sense, and above all a small group continues to profit from the arms trade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Spain, the Maricarmen case is at the center of public debate. The pope declined to comment because he was not aware of the detail, but he did urge politicians to study the issue in depth and find a solution to the housing crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 2021 report on abuse in France was devastating: 216,000 minors were abused within the French Church. During the pope\u2019s trip, seven survivors met with Pope Leo XIV in Lourdes. Afterward, they held a news conference. One of them said he had lost his faith. But after meeting the pope, he said he now had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":758,"featured_media":94955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"acf":{"video":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/mRGtB-F1zUk","video_descarga":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/b17conferenzastampaeng.mp4","international_url":"https:\/\/attuale.romereports.com\/news\/b17conferenzastampaint.mp4","type":"bn","newsletter":"si"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94945"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/758"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94945"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94960,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94945\/revisions\/94960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.romereports.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/strong>Several of them spoke about systemic abuse. Personally, I prefer to express it in a different way, although I did speak about some organizations within the Church who have, at times, if you will, as a system, been abusive. But I think it's important to make the distinction. Sexual abuse is first and foremost a human problem. When it happens within the Church, it actually has another whole dimension added to it, because people's lives of faith are deeply wounded and sometimes even destroyed.
<\/em>Another major issue during the visit, one Pope Leo addressed very firmly, was euthanasia. France passed a law in July to formally legalize it. The pope said that what is legal is not necessarily moral.
<\/em>POPE LEO XIV
<\/strong>The defence of life is something that as you all know the Church teaches, believes very deeply. And so, on the one hand obviously knowing that in France the law was recently approved, in other countries in Europe as well, as other parts of the world there is a lot of debating going on about the questions of end-of-life issues.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/em>On Germany, the pope said he would like to visit the country, but that he has no confirmed trips <\/em>beyond World Youth Day in Korea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>I'm optimistic about that, although I recognize the problems, I recognize the different causes that have hit the Church very hard, but it's hit the\u2014if you will\u2014the evangelical or Protestant Church very hard as well, and it has hit society in the much the same way.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>I do hope to reach out. I do hope to continue to work with leaders in the Church in Germany and find ways to respond to that. It would be interesting to study, analyze if and how there may be a relationship, for example, between the growth of these groups on the far right and even the far right is being splintered now as you see the one particular group is becoming even much more extreme with other so-called far-right groups.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n