For survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, Monday, October 20, 2025, marked a day of cautious hope and historic dialogue at the heart of the Vatican. For the first time since his election in May, Pope Leo XIV met with members of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA), a global coalition representing survivors from more than 30 countries. The hour-long meeting, held inside the Apostolic Palace, signaled a marked shift from the Vatican’s previous approach to activist groups and left participants feeling both heard and optimistic about the future.
According to BBC reporting, the meeting had originally been scheduled for just 20 minutes but stretched to a full hour—a testament, survivors said, to the Pope’s willingness to listen deeply. The group included six ECA board members and another representative, with participants hailing from Argentina, Canada, Germany, Uganda, the United States, and Peru. They sat in a semi-circle, facing Pope Leo at the head, in what Gemma Hickey, ECA’s board president and a survivor themselves, called a “historic” encounter. “This was a deeply meaningful conversation. Today we all felt heard,” Hickey told the Catholic News Agency.
ECA’s primary mission is to see the Catholic Church adopt a global zero-tolerance policy for clergy sexual abuse—a standard already in place in the United States since the 1990s. Under this policy, any priest who admits to or is proven to have sexually abused a child is permanently removed from ministry. While this approach is codified in U.S. church law, it has not been embraced elsewhere, and resistance remains strong in some quarters of the global Church.
Pope Leo did not shy away from acknowledging these challenges. “There was great resistance” to the idea of a universal zero-tolerance law, Tim Law, ECA’s co-founder, recalled the Pope saying, as reported by the Associated Press. Nevertheless, Law emphasized the group’s desire to work collaboratively with the Vatican: “Our goal is not confrontation but accountability, transparency, and a willingness to walk together toward solutions.”
The context for the meeting was shaped by a recent 100-page report from the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which called for streamlined protocols to remove Church leaders or personnel in cases of abuse or negligence. The report, highlighted by BBC, also stressed the “urgent need for bishops and major superiors to be held accountable for negligence and cover-up,” and noted that victims often lacked information about how their reports were being handled. The commission urged greater transparency, recommending that the public be informed when Church officials resign or are removed due to abuse or negligence.
Janet Aguti, ECA’s vice president and a survivor from Uganda, underscored the importance of global standards in her remarks to the Pope. “Children in the United States shouldn’t be better protected than children in Africa,” she told the Associated Press, adding, “I left the meeting with hope and I know it is a big step for us, and it’s a historical moment for me.” Aguti also highlighted the cultural barriers to addressing abuse in Africa, where silence and denial often prevail.
The survivors and advocates used the meeting to outline several key initiatives. Beyond the push for zero-tolerance, they discussed plans to convene a conference on alleged abuses in Opus Dei in Argentina and efforts to help survivors in the Philippines form a national organization. “Inspired by your words upon becoming pope, we come as bridge builders, ready to walk together toward truth, justice and healing,” Hickey told Pope Leo, according to the Associated Press.
Throughout the meeting, Pope Leo was described as humble, empathetic, and open to ongoing collaboration. “He allowed us to stay in contact, to have an open channel of communications,” said Matthias Katsch, a German participant, as quoted by the Associated Press. Evelyn Korkmaz, a Canadian survivor and co-founder of ECA, echoed this sentiment: “Today I feel like I was heard. I believe he’s going to continue this road to reconciliation.” Hickey, too, remarked on the Pope’s demeanor, telling BBC that he was “very humble, funny, [and] very down to earth,” and that the meeting felt genuine rather than perfunctory. “Survivors have long wanted a seat at the table and I didn’t feel like he was giving us lip service. I felt like he was genuine, realistic, and very open and eager to collaborate with us.”
Pope Leo’s approach stands in contrast to those of his predecessors. While both Pope Francis and Pope Benedict XVI met with individual victims, they largely kept activist and advocacy organizations at arm’s length. The Associated Press noted that ECA had sought an audience with Pope Francis as early as 2019, but it was not until Leo’s papacy that such a meeting materialized. Leo himself has a history of engagement with survivors: as a bishop in Peru, he was the point person for listening to victims within the Peruvian bishops’ conference.
In a July 2025 interview with Crux, Pope Leo candidly discussed the difficulties of addressing the Church’s abuse crisis, especially the challenge of balancing justice for victims with the rights of the accused. “An authentic and deep sensitivity and compassion to the pain, the suffering that people have endured at the hands of Church ministers, whether that be priests or bishops, laity, religious men or women, catechists, etc.—that’s an issue that is with us, and I think it needs to be treated with deep respect,” he said, as cited by Catholic News Agency.
The significance of the meeting was not lost on the participants, who described it as a “big step” and a “historic moment.” Hickey reflected on the risks and hopes involved: “This is as much a risk for him to engage in a dialogue as it was for us,” they told BBC. “We realise it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight, but at the end of the day, coming together and establishing a relationship and continuing to build that relationship is a step in the right direction.”
As for next steps, ECA is preparing to provide Pope Leo with expert opinions and detailed documents supporting the case for a worldwide zero-tolerance policy. Hickey said the pontiff seemed interested in reviewing their materials. The group left the Vatican with a sense of possibility, even as they acknowledged the challenges ahead. “Just because it’s a dark chapter, I feel like we can change how the story ends—he appreciated that,” Hickey told the BBC.
While the path to reform within the global Catholic Church is long and fraught with resistance, Monday’s meeting offered a glimmer of hope for survivors and advocates. With open dialogue now established at the highest level, the prospect for real change, though uncertain, feels more tangible than ever before.
