The controversy over whether or not the Pope will meet with victims of pedophilia in the Church during his visit to Spain is already marking the trip of Leo XIV before he arrives this Saturday, and the Vatican has decided to intervene in an unusual way. In a brief statement released at nine o’clock on Friday night, the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, confirmed that the Pontiff will indeed meet with abuse survivors. He did not clarify when or where. It will probably be in Madrid, at the nunciature, where the Pontiff will stay.
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“Regarding some news spread by the press, I can confirm that during the days of the upcoming Apostolic Journey, the Holy Father will meet some victims of abuse by the clergy in Spain. The meeting has been organized by the Spanish Church. More information will be provided after the meeting, respecting the victims, their wishes and their privacy,” the spokesman said.
The timing of the intervention, just hours before the Pope takes off from Rome at eight in the morning, and the tone of the statement, a symptom that the issue was getting out of control, is a sign of certain discomfort in the Vatican over the fact that the scandal is already dominating the trip’s agenda. The detail of specifying that the event is the responsibility of the Spanish Church is also very significant: it indicates that the Vatican wishes to distance itself from the management of this delicate matter, in which something has evidently gone wrong, as victim organizations still know nothing, have already begun to protest and have announced a demonstration on Monday.
There is no meeting with victims of pedophilia scheduled in the official agenda, and until now it had simply been said that, if held, it would be done privately and communicated later. This was what was usually done on the trips of previous popes. The Spanish Church, moreover, did not wish to give any prominence to this issue, but the secrecy of this way of proceeding has ended up unleashing controversy. Victim associations suspect that people with a low protest profile and who have not had contact with the media will be chosen, to ensure secrecy around the meeting. The criticisms come, precisely, from the fact that everything is in line with the stance of denial of the scandal that the Spanish Church has maintained these years.
Expectation about whether the Pontiff would receive victims had grown in recent hours. British journalist Gareth Gore, known for a controversial investigative and denunciation book about Opus Dei, had revealed to EL PAÍS that a source close to the Pope confirmed to him that he would meet with a small group of abuse survivors. The journalist had an audience with Leo XIV last March, in which he valued his work and, according to Gore, “made it very clear that he wanted to hear directly from victims of Opus Dei abuses.”
The writer tried to make that meeting happen during his trip to Spain. “[The affected people] wrote him a letter and I sent it to the Vatican about two weeks ago. This same week, on Monday, I received a response stating that the Pope’s agenda was completely full and that, therefore, it would not be possible to receive the victims of Opus Dei in audience,” he adds to EL PAÍS.
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The journalist’s revelation anticipates that none of the victims the Pope will meet will be affected by Opus Dei. In any case, there was no mention in the official agenda, so said meeting will be private.
Spanish organizations of affected people have expressed their hurt and disappointment that the organization of the visit did not include them for a meeting. “They treat us like refuse. What can be expected from the Church?” Juan Cuatrecasas, father of an abuse victim from the Gaztelueta school of Opus Dei and president of the National Association for Stolen Childhood, told EFE agency this Friday.
Gore states that Leo XIV, during the meeting he had with him in March, “was shocked and outraged to learn how high-ranking officials of the Spanish Catholic Church had dismissed former members of Opus Dei who had tried to report the abuses they suffered during their time in the organization.” Although the Pope, the writer accuses, “has shown a desire to address the issue of abuses, the organizers of the papal visit clearly had other priorities.”
Several victim associations and child rights activists, such as Miguel Hurtado —the first complainant of pedophilia cases in the Montserrat Abbey— plan to protest this Monday in front of the Apostolic Nunciature in Madrid. Many of them asked by letter, as Gore did, the trip organizers to have a meeting with the pontiff to tell them how the Spanish Church continues to revictimize them. “There is no real commitment to us nor a will for change. It’s the same as always: since they consider that we are already participating in the state’s reparation process, it’s their way of continuing to pass the buck,” Ciro Molina, victim and ANIR spokesperson in the Canary Islands, one of Leo XIV’s destinations on his trip to Spain, told this newspaper.
Gore points out that several members of Leo XIV’s trip organization belong to Opus Dei and fears that they may have intervened to prevent the meeting with victims of the Work from materializing: “Opus Dei’s tentacles are extremely deep in Spain, as evidenced by the fact that the entire Pope’s visit is being managed by a numerary of Opus Dei, the same man who, in fact, was in charge of launching a smear campaign against me.”
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