VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
The Catholic Observer [Baltimore MD]
October 21, 2025
By Gary Gately
[Photo above: Pope Leo XIV meets Monday in the library of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace with Pedro Salinas, a Peruvian abuse survivor and journalist. (Photo: Vatican Media)]
The meeting came four days after the release of a highly critical report from the Vatican’s child protection commission faulting the Church for its lax response to clergy sexual abuse.
Clergy abuse survivors and advocates said their meeting Monday with Pope Leo XIV represented a “significant moment of dialogue” and a “historic and hope-filled step toward greater cooperation” with the Vatican in combating abuse in the Catholic Church.
The private, hour-long meeting came four days after the release of a highly critical report from the Vatican’s child protection commission found that the 1.4 billion-member Catholic Church has been lax in fulfilling its “moral and spiritual obligation to heal the deep wounds” inflicted on victims of clergy sexual abuse for decades.
During the Vatican meeting, six representatives of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA), a coalition of abuse survivors and advocates from more than 30 countries, reiterated the group’s insistence that the Vatican adopt a global “zero-tolerance” policy requiring Church personnel to report abuse to civil authorities. The Catholic Church in the U.S. adopted a zero-tolerance abuse policy in 2002 after explosive revelations about widespread abuse, but Church leaders in numerous other countries have yet to do so.
Tim Law, ECA’s co-founder and a member of its governing board, said Leo, the first U.S.-born pope, acknowledged during the meeting “great resistance” within the Church to a universal zero-tolerance policy
“Our goal is not confrontation, but accountability, transparency, and a willingness to walk together toward solutions,” Law, an abuse victim and Seattle-based lawyer, said in a statement. “The Church has a moral responsibility to support survivors and prevent future harm.”
Law and other ECA members said Leo’s willingness to work with them heartened them, raising hopes that the Church would adopt stronger measures to stop clergy abuse of minors and other vulnerable people.
ECA’s board president, Gemma Hickey, a survivor of clergy abuse in Canada, said the group’s representatives engaged in a “deeply meaningful conversation” with the pope.
“It reflects a shared commitment to justice, healing and real change,” Hickey said at a news conference. “Survivors have long sought a seat at the table, and today we felt heard…. We told [Pope Leo] that we come as bridge-builders, ready to walk together toward truth, justice and healing.”
ECA members from Argentina, Germany and Uganda also attended the meeting.
“I left the meeting with hope,” Janet Aguti, a Ugandan abuse survivor and vice president of ECA’s board, said at the news conference. “It is a big step for us. We came not only to raise our concerns, but also to explore how we might work together to ensure the protection of children and vulnerable adults around the world.”
Leo also met separately Monday with ECA member Pedro Salinas, a Peruvian abuse survivor and journalist. Salinas got to know the former Cardinal Robert F. Prevost while seeking justice for victims of abuse by the founder of a lay Catholic group in Peru. Leo had spent two decades as a missionary and bishop in Peru.
In its 200-page report, released Thursday, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors called for tougher sanctions for abusers and their enablers; public acknowledgement of cover-up and mishandling of abuse cases; and reparations for victims going beyond financial compensation, to include invitations for them to help develop safeguarding procedures and professional psychological support for survivors.
The report marked only the second from the commission since the late Pope Francis established it in 2014. The new report, coming a year after the commission’s first, draws on accounts from dozens of abuse survivors throughout the world and covers 2024, predating Pope Leo XIV’s election by four months.