Vatican City.- Pope Leo XIV lamented this week, during the consistory with cardinals from around the world, that the Church “closed the door” to victims of abuse, which made their pain “stronger,” the Holy See reported this Saturday.
“Abuse in itself causes a deep wound that may last a lifetime; but many times the scandal in the Church is because the door was closed and the victims were not welcomed, nor were they accompanied with the closeness of authentic pastors,” said Leo XIV on Thursday in his speech at the end of the meeting with the cardinals.
In the speech, released this Saturday by the Vatican press office, Leo XIV stated that “many times the pain of the victims has been stronger because they have not been welcomed and listened to.”
The Pope had convened cardinals from around the world to an extraordinary two-day consistory, on January 7th and 8th, with the aim of gaining their support for decision-making in the governance of the Catholic Church.
“Although it was not a specific topic of dialogue in our meeting, I want to mention a problem that is still today a real wound in the life of the Church in many places: the crisis caused by sexual abuse,” said the pontiff.
The debate topics proposed for these days had been four: synodality, that is, the idea of a participatory church; evangelization, the apostolic constitution and the consequent reform of the Curia of the late Francis and the liturgy, the latter a divisive issue between factions due to the Latin Mass.
In the conclusion of the forum, Leo XIV encouraged the cardinals to convey a clear message to the bishops: “Listening is deeply important.”
«We cannot close our eyes or our hearts», said the pontiff, who recalled the testimony of a victim who explained to him that the most painful thing for her was that no bishop wanted to listen to her.
In his speech, he also addressed the issue of training: “You have spoken of the importance of training: training for listening, training for a spirituality of listening. In particular, as you emphasized, in the seminaries, but also for the bishops!”, he pointed out.
In addition, the Pope proposed the celebration of a summit of this type with the cardinals annually to continue cooperating, the next one in June of this year.
“I want to suggest that this year we hold a second two-day edition, and then, for the future, continue the meetings, but perhaps for more days, once a year: three or four days, as some groups have suggested,” he detailed.
The first day, as he explained, would be for reflection, prayer, and meeting, while the remaining days would be dedicated to work.
In these two days, Leon XIV managed to gather 170 of the 245 members of the current College of Cardinals in the Vatican and urged them on several occasions to strive for unity, aware of the divisions between the reformist and conservative factions, also during the twelve years of Francis’ pontificate.
