Pope Leo XIV doubled down on his opposition to euthanasia and medically assisted dying throughout a go to Sunday to Lourdes, the French Catholic shrine related to miraculous cures and now additionally a spot of therapeutic for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
Leo denounced the “present tendencies that search to redefine the worth of human life in sickness, struggling and previous age,” throughout a Mass on the Lourdes prairie earlier than some 150,000 individuals, lots of them in wheelchairs.
“Right here, nobody is turned away because of their frailty,” Leo stated in his homily.
Leo traveled to Lourdes within the foothills of the Pyrenees on the second leg of his four-day go to to France, the as soon as staunchly Catholic however formally secular nation. The go to has been marked by enormous crowds — 800,000 at Leo’s Mass on Paris’ iconic Place de la Concorde — and his messaging in opposition to laws permitting assisted dying that was not too long ago accredited in France and a number of other different nations.
Lourdes turned a significant pilgrimage vacation spot after the Catholic Church formally acknowledged visions of the Virgin Mary reported right here by a younger woman in 1858. The positioning close to the Spanish border attracts tens of millions of pilgrims every year, particularly sick and disabled believers hoping for a treatment from the famed spring water within the Lourdes grotto the place the visions purportedly occurred.
Leo arrived in Lourdes from Paris on Saturday evening and instantly prayed contained in the Grotto of Apparitions and drank from the spring.
“He has given a message of hope for France, a message of hope and greatness for France, and renewal for France,” stated Paris pilgrim Pierre Caziljc.
Pope delivers a message about life whereas in France
Throughout his four-day go to to France, Leo has repeatedly referred to as for a renewed respect for all times in step with Catholic instructing that each one human life should be protected and defended from conception till pure loss of life. The instructing interprets into agency opposition to abortion, euthanasia and medically assisted dying.
France’s Nationwide Meeting in 2024 enshrined abortion as a constitutional proper and not too long ago gave ultimate approval to a invoice permitting adults with incurable diseases to obtain deadly remedy.
In Lourdes, the place the church has acknowledged 72 “miraculous” cures as genuine, the query of respecting even essentially the most frail, sick and susceptible is especially acute.
“Your crutches, your wheelchairs and your hidden tears should not obstacles; as an alternative, they’re the very place the place you might be absolutely revered and welcomed,” Leo stated. “Lourdes is blessed as a spot for professing the sweetness and sanctity of life, for all times is welcomed right here as a valuable reward from God.”
Survivors go to Lourdes as a part of their therapeutic course of
Extra not too long ago, Lourdes has additionally develop into a spot of therapeutic for survivors of clergy sexual abuse. Leo was to satisfy with seven survivors on Sunday, together with one who was abused as an grownup, in recognition of the brand new frontier of the abuse disaster dealing with the church.
The French church has endured a brutal reckoning with its legacy of abuse. An unbiased report in 2021 estimated 330,000 kids had been abused over 70 years by some 3,000 monks and church staff.
Regardless of criticism of the report’s methodology and conclusions, French bishops put in place an unbiased system of compensation for victims that thus far has beneficial the church pay out greater than 20 million euros.
Throughout a gathering with French bishops on Sunday morning, Leo praised their response to victims and urged them to proceed. However he additionally acknowledged that the cratering in priestly vocations within the French church is said to the scandal, given the priesthood is now generally considered with suspicion.
“For priestly vocations to flourish, the priest should be welcomed, accepted, and beloved,” Leo stated.
On the day Leo arrived in Paris, a gaggle of victims wrote an open letter asking him to acknowledge the church’s duty and criticizing that the seven survivors had been chosen by the church, not victims’ teams.
“The Church should relinquish its place as each decide and occasion to the proceedings,” they wrote within the letter revealed by French newspaper Liberation.
Monsignor Pierre-Antoine Bozo, spokesperson for the bishops’ convention, stated two of the seven had really been proposed by victims’ teams and that Leo deliberately wished to maintain the group small to facilitate an intimate encounter.
“In terms of listening to them, you’ll be able to’t have 50 individuals in entrance of you,” he stated. “So I feel that’s actually what the pope selected: to pay attention in order that we are able to act and reply extra successfully.”
Alberto Pizzoli/AFP by way of Getty Pictures
Alberto Pizzoli/AFP by way of Getty Pictures Pope Leo XIV waves to worshippers as he arrives on board of the Papamobile to have a good time a holy mass on the Prairie of the Shrine of Our Woman of Lourdes, southwestern France, on September 27, 2026.
Mosaics are a painful reminder of alleged abuse
In Lourdes, Leo was even be reminded of a prickly abuse case inherited from Pope Francis.
The façade of one of many Lourdes basilicas was designed by the Rev. Marko Rupnik, one of many Catholic Church’s most well-known mosaic artists.
Rupnik is at the moment on trial in a Vatican courtroom, accused by greater than two dozen girls of getting psychologically, spiritually and sexually abused them beginning within the Nineties, together with through the creation of his artworks.
His case was lined up for 3 many years by his Jesuit superiors, and even Francis was suspected of getting protected his fellow Jesuit. In response to a media outcry, Francis ordered a canonical trial in 2024, which is ongoing.
The Rupnik case posed the query of what to do along with his mosaics, which adorn basilicas around the globe.
In 2024, Lourdes Bishop Jean-Marc Micas determined to not illuminate the façade of the Notre Dame du Rosaire Basilica at evening. He subsequently ordered the adorned doorways lined, and extra not too long ago determined to cowl the façade’s mosaics fully. He reasoned that abuse victims who come to Lourdes for therapeutic shouldn’t be pressured to see them.
In a letter to Leo forward of his journey, 5 girls who say they had been abused by Rupnik praised Micas’ resolution to cowl the mosaics however criticized the Vatican’s remedy of their case and the three many years it has taken for them to be heard.
“This extended and loud silence has been skilled by us, the victims, as an additional, steady violence,” they wrote.
Bozo additionally praised Micas’ resolution to cowl the works, although he stated the choice was his alone and never that of all the bishops’ convention.
“It creates such a heavy symbolic burden for the victims,” he stated. “For them, I feel this needed to be executed.”
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Related Press author Samuel Petrequin in Paris contributed to this report.
