Pope Leo XIV's visit to Spain has been filled with public acts, some ecclesiastical and some civil, like a meeting with personalities from the world of culture and sports and a speech in Spain's Congress. But perhaps the most meaningful act took place on Monday afternoon, and is one that didn't appear in the official schedule from the Vatican: a meeting with victims of sexual abuses by members of the Church.
The meeting took place in the Nunciature in Madrid, organised by the Spanish Church. On Monday morning, Leo XIV described the problem of the sexual abuses kept hidden by the Church as "a plague" and that the issue "is not closed" in a meeting with the bishops in the Spanish Episcopal Conference, although he didn't use the exact words (victims, sexual abuse, or pederasty).
However, the meeting has been surrounded by criticism because some victims' associations feel left out, accusing the Church and the Pontiff of choosing the less "dissident" organisations and victims, the ones that have been less critical with the Church and the cover-up attempts by the bishops and other members of the clergy. "A lack of representativeness and pluralism", as Juan Cuatrecasas, president of ANIR (National Association of Stolen Childhood) stated in a demonstration with four other victims' associations near the nunciature (via El País).
Cuatrecasas adds that the Church is acting in "bad faith" because they have been ignoring their requests to meet toe Pope, while Miguel Hurtado, spokesperson for the Comprehensive Reparation Now movement and survivor of abuses at Montserrat Abbey, said that the Pope needs to express if he is "in favour of measures that guarantee that in the future these cases are not handled internally, but by the courts of justice" (via Antena3).