VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
The Tablet [Market Harborough, England]
October 20, 2025
By Patrick Hudson
The private audience came days after the publication of the second annual report from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on safeguarding across the Church.
Pope Leo held his first meeting with survivors of clerical sexual abuse since his election.
Six members of the board of directors for Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA), an international coalition of abuse survivors, visited the Pope at the Vatican on Monday morning for what they called “a significant moment of dialogue”.
“It was a deeply meaningful conversation, reflecting a shared commitment to justice, healing, and genuine change,” said ECA president Gemma Hickey, a Canadian survivor. “Survivors have long sought a place at the table, and today we felt heard.”
The hour-long meeting in the apostolic palace included discussion of ECA’s “Zero Tolerance Initiative” to promote global standards for protection. The visit originated in a letter to the newly-elected Pope introducing the group as “bridge builders, ready to walk together toward truth, justice, and healing”.
Pope Leo proposed establishing a “dialogue” between ECA and the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which on 16 October published its second annual report on safeguarding across the Catholic Church.
The report called for several major Church-wide reforms, particularly the development of reparation schemes for survivors of abuse based on “conversional justice” and clearer safeguarding mechanisms – including publication of the reasons for the removal of Church leaders when these relate to abuse.
The emphasis on the need to develop “concrete measures of reparation” beyond financial compensation emerged from the commission’s “focus group” work with survivors of abuse, which features prominently in the report. The president of commission, Archbishop Thibault Verny of Chambéry, told Vatican News that “the voices of the victims were not very present” in its first report published last year so “we made a point of involving a reflection group made up of victims”.
Discussing how the report’s recommendations should be “appropriated by different cultures, mindsets and nations”, Archbishop Verny emphasised the need for consistent standards across the Church.
“A life is a life,” he said. “Vulnerability remains vulnerability. No matter what – and sometimes there’s a temptation to smooth over the truth – a life remains a life, regardless of the circumstances. This is central to the Church’s mission. God sees all human life with the same value, regardless of the circumstances.”
The report includes studies of national churches, as well as analyses of continent-wide developments and the work of the Vatican. The studies cover 17 national bishops’ conferences (as well as the regional conference for North Africa), two religious orders and a lay association, and the first section of the Dicastery for Evangelisation, which is responsible for churches in historic “mission” territories.
While noting several positive developments in Africa, including the growing understanding of “the evangelising dimension of safeguarding”, the report makes numerous criticisms of the 10 African conferences featured in its studies. These include inconsistent policies, a widespread lack of funding and cultural challenges often linked to sexual taboos.
Italy also features prominently in the report, appearing first in the list of national studies, with further studies of seven of the 16 ecclesiastical regions to which its 226 dioceses belong besides the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI).
It describes a range of “challenges” including a lack of stable funds for safeguarding operations and uncertainties regarding reporting structures and the involvement of civil authorities. It specified problems in Rome and other parts of the country that foreign clergy visit for study.
The report also criticises some Italian dioceses for not participating in meetings with commission members and failing answered the questionnaire used to compile its data. It notes “great disparities” in their safeguarding provision and “substantial cultural resistance in Italy to addressing abuse”.
In a response also published on 16 October, the CEI said the information in the report was “not exhaustive”, citing its own survey for 2023-24 showing that “all Italian regions and dioceses have established a diocesan or inter-diocesan protection service”.
“The [commission’s] report does not account for all of this work,” it said, adding that it would issue new tools in the coming weeks “to standardise procedures at a national level” for safeguarding training.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the Archbishop of Bologna and president of the CEI, said the Church was pursuing several further initiatives “to promote a culture of protection at multiple levels, as well as the social, and to oppose every form of abuse”.
“All the local churches are firmly aware that this is an unstoppable journey,” he said.