DUBLIN (IRELAND)
EWTN News [Irondale AL]
February 15, 2026
By Walter Sánchez Silva and Colm Flynn
David Ryan, a 61-year-old Irishman who suffered sexual abuse as a teenager, shared his story face-to-face with Pope Leo XIV, the first time the pope met with a victim individually.
Feb. 2 marked a turning point in the life of David Ryan, a 61-year-old Irishman who suffered sexual abuse as a teenager. More than 40 years later, he was able to share his story face-to-face with Pope Leo XIV in the first private meeting the pontiff has held alone with a victim of abuse.
While the Holy Father had already met with other victims of abuse, those meetings were in groups. The meeting with Ryan was different: For almost an hour, he was able to share everything he thought and still thinks about what happened to him and about the reaction of the Catholic Church in Ireland, which he felt did not listen to him.
“He’s a lovely man, and a lovely experience… Wow. I’m so glad I‘ve done it today, I’m really so glad I’ve done it. I didn’t hold back, I told him about the abuse and asked him, ‘Why are these priests still doing this?’” Ryan told reporters in Rome who were waiting for him outside the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican.
“His sympathy, his empathy toward the survivors, myself and my family, toward my close friends… He felt this, he was sorry, and it was genuine. I knew it was genuine,” he emphasized.
Ryan suffered sexual abuse when he was roughly between the ages of 11 and 17 while attending Blackrock and Willow Park School in Dublin. His brother, Mark, who died at age 62, was also a victim of abuse but never revealed what had happened to him. “It ruined my life. It ruined Mark’s life, and my brother is now gone,” Ryan, who brought a photo of Mark to Rome, told EWTN News.
When Ryan’s story came to light in a documentary titled “Blackrock Boys” on RTÉ radio, it shocked the nation. Following the broadcast, the Irish government commissioned a report that revealed widespread allegations of sexual abuse at hundreds of schools over several decades — a total of 2,400 cases. This was made possible by the courage of Ryan and others like him who shared their stories.
Ryan, who felt he was not being heard by the Church, wrote to Pope Leo XIV and received a reply to meet with him, an appointment he attended with Deirdre Kenny, CEO of One in Four, an Irish charity that advises and supports adults who have suffered sexual abuse.
‘I’m so sorry for you’
EWTN Vatican correspondent Colm Flynn spoke with Ryan after his meeting with the pope. He recounted that he told Leo XIV “that I wanted an apology, and the first thing he said to me was, ‘David, all I can say is that I’m so sorry for your pain and hurt, what your family went through, what Mark and the other survivors went through. I can feel your pain, but I don’t know your pain.’ And he looked me straight in the eyes and just said, ‘I’m so sorry for you.’”
“But I could feel a kind of energy coming down when he told me, because I knew he meant it, and it’s like a whole new experience for me. It’s still going down; I still can’t believe I’ve been there. I thought this day would never come,” he emphasized.
‘I just wanted him to hear my voice, my story’
After explaining that he wanted to express his anger to the pope and get a response from him, Ryan clarified that with the Holy Father, “I wasn’t going to shout and scream; there was no point in doing that. I just wanted him to hear my voice, I wanted him to hear my story, and he heard. He apologized in a way I wasn’t expecting, and his empathy toward me… it was just quiet and surreal.”
“And I didn’t hold back, I told him I had been raped three times. It’s not pleasant, but many men are afraid to talk about it, and a lot of men don’t cry,” he said. However, he shared that in his case, he managed “to talk about it, I have cried.”
Ryan also said the pope “was shocked to hear how many people had been abused and that the Church had hidden it for so long. I asked him why they did that, and he replied, ‘David, I don’t have an answer yet for you, but I will have an answer when I can.’”
‘It wasn’t your fault’
Ryan also told Flynn that he shared his story so that others “would want to come forward and speak out about clerical abuse, because a lot of men don’t talk and keep it quiet.”
“And as I told the pope: It wasn’t my fault. And that took me a long time to admit: It wasn’t my fault. He shook his head and said to me, ‘Yes, it wasn’t your fault, David.’ And that really did hit me. We shook hands afterwards, and I know he understands. It was the best thing I’ve ever done,” he concluded.
By Walter Sánchez Silva, Colm Flynn
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Walter Sánchez Silva is a senior writer for ACI Prensa (https://www.aciprensa.com). With more than 15 years of experience, he has reported from important ecclesial events in Europe, Asia and… See full bio