At Lourdes, Leo XIV defends life and turns to the victims of abuse

On 27 September 2026, for the second day of his journey through France, Pope Leo XIV came to Lourdes. There he met the bishops of France in the sanctuary's "Sainte-Bernadette" hemicycle, celebrated an open-air Mass on the meadow, then met behind closed doors with seven people who had been victims of sexual assault committed by members of the clergy. It is the first visit of a pope to Lourdes since 2008.

Before the bishops he recalled the consecration of France to the Virgin, on 10 February 1638, and affirmed that "the word of the Church has full right of citizenship in the public debate in France; by its very nature it possesses a prophetic authority. Even if it is not always heeded, it is awaited." He commended their firmness in the recent debates on the end of life and urged them to defend the liberty and the rights of the Church.

On the meadow of the sanctuary, some 150,000 of the faithful attended the Mass, according to the estimate of the Holy See, a figure no independent source has corroborated. In his homily the pope aimed at "the present currents that claim to redefine the value of human life in the face of sickness, suffering, or old age," while France legalised euthanasia at the end of July 2026; against them, he said, "the Grotto of Massabielle stands as a sanctuary of Christian hope."

In the afternoon, with no media present, he was to meet seven victims: a former boarder of the Notre-Dame de Bétharram school, a victim of Abbé Bernard Preynat, convicted in 2020, and a woman abused by Abbé Pierre. The mosaics of Marko Rupnik, on the façade of the Basilica of the Rosary, have been covered: up to twenty women accuse the Slovenian priest of sexual or psychological abuse.

The pope meditated before the photograph of "the Weeping Child," displayed at Lourdes for five years in memory of the minors abused within the Church. "It is indispensable to acknowledge our own faults for our spiritual progress," he said. According to the estimate of a public report released in 2021, the Church in France has recognised up to 320,000 victims since 1950; it has paid 44 million euros to indemnify 1,193 people in five years.

What tradition teaches

On human life, the Church has never varied. The fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20:13), forbids taking the life of the innocent, and the Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches that man is not the master of his own life: to give it as to take it back belongs to God alone. To kill from compassion remains to kill; suffering and old age take nothing from the dignity of a soul made for Heaven.

On the crimes committed against the little ones, the sentence of the Lord admits of no appeal: "But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea" (Saint Matthew 18:6). The priest who betrays this trust sins not only against justice, but against the sanctity of his state.

On the place of the Church in the city, perennial doctrine holds that the Church, a perfect society, possesses from God the right to order what pertains to salvation, and that the State owes her respect and liberty (Leo XIII, Immortale Dei, 1885).

The measure

In defending life against the laws that claim to redefine its price, the pope here rejoins the constant doctrine: it is the very language of the fifth commandment, and we say it without detour, it is just. Likewise, to claim for the Church the right to speak in public life conforms to the tradition, which goes further still: the word of the Church is not merely "awaited" among other voices, it bears an authority that the city owes to her.

On abuse, to acknowledge one's faults is a Christian duty, not a favour: there is no pardon without confession and without reparation. Tradition demands more than words and indemnities; it demands justice, toward the victims as toward the guilty, and the restoration of the priestly sanctity these crimes have profaned. To cover mosaics is a sign; it stands in place of neither judgment nor penance.

What this means for the faithful

The faithful formed in the tradition will hold these two truths firmly together: the life of the innocent is inviolable from the cradle to the last breath, and the betrayal of the little ones is a crime that cries to Heaven. He will rejoice that life is defended at Lourdes, and he will not forget that wounds are closed only by justice and penance, never by forgetting.

Sources. Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566), on the fifth commandment "Thou shalt not kill"; Exodus 20:13 and Saint Matthew 18:6 (Vulgate, Douay-Rheims); Leo XIII, Immortale Dei (1885), on the liberty and the rights of the Church in the city.