LIMA — Pope Leo met six survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Lima on Thursday, in a private meeting lasting more than an hour, as his emotional return to the country he calls his homeland drew the largest crowds of his papacy, the Vatican said.
Leo, the first Peruvian citizen to lead the Catholic Church, arrived in Peru on Wednesday on the final leg of a 12-day, three-country tour of South America that also took him to Uruguay and Argentina. The Vatican estimated that 3 million people turned out in Lima, a record for his papacy, after about 2.5 million attended a Mass in Argentina earlier in the week, according to CNN. In a speech on arrival, Leo said his return held a very special meaning for him and told Peruvians, to wide applause, that he was also returning to his homeland, according to Reuters.
The Chicago-born pope served as a missionary in Peru for about 20 years and was bishop of the northern city of Chiclayo from 2015 to 2023. He holds Peruvian citizenship and will receive a new Peruvian identity card listing Chiclayo as his address during the visit, according to CNN. On Wednesday he urged President Keiko Fujimori to heal Peru’s wounds, according to Reuters, and on Thursday he met the country’s bishops, addressed a gathering on Peru’s future and was due at a prayer vigil with young people in the national soccer stadium.
Thursday’s meeting with survivors was his second of the tour; he met five survivors in Buenos Aires earlier in the trip. The Vatican said some of the survivors he met in Peru were former members of the Sodalitium, a Peruvian religious movement dissolved by the late Pope Francis in 2025 after abuse findings. According to Reuters, the discussion covered how the Church can better listen to abuse victims, part of Leo’s effort to repair the Church’s standing after scandals that have damaged it worldwide.
The tour is one of the most demanding organised for a pope in decades: 12 flights and some 40 speeches, according to Le Monde, and it is taking place less than a month after Leo underwent surgery that removed a malignant tumour from his lung. Doctors confirmed on October 26 that the trip would go ahead as planned.
On the streets, the visit has played as a homecoming. Carmen Moreno, 78, wiped away tears after watching the popemobile pass on Wednesday evening in Lima’s Plaza de Armas, where she had waited with her daughter for seven hours, according to Reuters. On Friday the pope travels to Chiclayo, the diocese he led for eight years, before continuing over the weekend to Cusco in the Andes and the Amazonian city of Pucallpa.
What happens next is the harder part of the visit’s promise. Survivors’ groups will judge the Lima meeting by whether the Church changes how it handles abuse cases in Peru, the question Leo discussed with the six survivors on Thursday. His trip ends on November 16, and the Vatican has not said what, if any, new measures will follow from the meetings in Lima and Buenos Aires.
Sources: Reuters; Reuters, Lima crowds; Holy See Press Office bulletin.
