Pope Francis to meet sexual abuse victims during World Youth Day visit in Portugal

Pope Francis is expected to meet with sexual abuse victims in Portugal when he visits the country for World Youth Day.

Cardinal Manuel Clemente, the patriarch of Lisbon, confirmed the said meeting, which will be part of his official itinerary for Lisbon.

However, the location and date of the meeting will not be revealed to the public to protect the privacy of the victims, according to Lisbon Auxiliary Bishop Americo Aguiar.

Pope Francis has been condemning child sexual abuse among Church leaders since he was elected to the pontificate. 

In 2019, the pope promulgated “Vos Estis Lux Mundi,” a Church legislation aimed to address sexual abuse in the Church. Earlier this year, he made those rules permanent after doing some amendments.

This meeting is particularly significant for the local Church in Portugal, wherein nearly 5,000 children were reported to have been subjected to sexual abuse, mostly by clergymen and Church officials, over the course of 70 years.

Despite the alarming numbers, the Independent Commission for the Study of Sexual Abuse of Children confirmed that its findings were just the “tip of the iceberg.”

Commission head Pedro Strecht said that more than 100 priests who are still in active Church service are suspected of child sexual abuse.

Bishop Jose Ornelas, head of the bishops' conference, asked the victims for forgiveness and apologized for the Church’s failure to grasp the scale of the problem.

Ornelas assured the public that the conference will not ignore the findings of the commission and pledged to work hard toward transparency and justice.

The 2023 World Youth Day in Lisbon will take place on August 1 to 6, and the pope will divide his time between meetings with government leaders and encounters with the youth.

Held every three years, the inception of the week-long World Youth Day event was commonly attributed to Pope St. John Paul II when his Palm Sunday gathering of 1984 marking the Youth Jubilee of the Holy Year of Redemption drew thousands of young people from across the globe.