Pope Leo XIV urged the Catholic Church to expand safeguarding attention beyond children, telling Vatican child-protection officials Monday that “vulnerable” adults are also affected by abuse and that the church must listen to victims, according to the Associated Press.
In two back-to-back audiences held in Rome, the pope first met with members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the Vatican body that advises the church on sexual-abuse prevention strategies. The pope’s remarks focused on vulnerability in adults, an issue the AP said the commission is addressing this year in the wake of broader revelations about abuse in “vulnerable” situations within the church.
Speaking to the commission, Leo seemed to frame the next frontier in safeguarding as responding courageously to safeguarding challenges, with “pastoral clarity and structural renewal,” the AP reported, and the pope said reading what he described as “signs of the times” helps the church address safeguarding challenges by listening to victims.
Leo’s audience with the commission came as church leaders have historically concentrated on alleged clergy sexual abuse of children, the AP said, while directing less attention to allegations involving abuse of adults in vulnerable situations. The AP described adult vulnerability as potentially involving seminarians and nuns abused by superiors—spiritually, psychologically, physically or sexually—as well as parishioners who may be exploited by charismatic spiritual leaders.
The pope then met later Monday with Gareth Gore, an investigative journalist and author, who has criticized Opus Dei and wrote the 2024 book “Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church.” The AP reported that Leo’s interest in the Gore meeting was reflected in how the Vatican handled it: Gore’s audience was listed on the pope’s formal agenda, and the Vatican released photos of the encounter.
Gore’s book detailed allegations of abuse connected to Opus Dei, and Opus Dei rejected the book, issuing a 106-page set of “clarifications” to journalists after it was published, according to the AP. The AP also said that in 2024 Argentine prosecutors concluded there were grounds for launching a criminal investigation into top South American Opus officials over charges of human trafficking and labor exploitation involving 44 women who said they were recruited to perform domestic tasks in their homes.
AP reported that some complainants told it in 2021 they worked under “manifestly illegal conditions,” including working without pay for 12 hours-plus without breaks except for food or prayer, with no registration in the Social Security system and other violations of basic rights. The AP said no one had been formally charged in the case, and that Opus Dei in Argentina had denied the accusations, describing the claims as categorically denied in a 2024 statement.
The AP further tied the pope’s approach to his earlier engagements with Opus Dei leadership and critics. It said that in 2022 Pope Francis imposed changes that reduced Opus Dei’s special status, including that it would no longer report directly to the pope but to the Vatican office for clergy, and that Francis told Opus to rewrite its statutes. A year later, the AP said, Francis issued another decree stating the Holy See could write the statutes itself.
According to the AP, Leo signaled early in his pontificate that Opus issues were on his mind. Six days after his election, he met on May 14 with Opus moderator Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz Braña, and last month, on Feb. 16, he met with Opus prelate Fernando Ocáriz and his auxiliary, Monsignor Mariano Fazio. Opus told the AP that those officials briefed Leo on its position “regarding certain specific controversies in Argentina.”
On Monday’s Gore meeting, the AP reported that it was facilitated by Pedro Salinas, described as a former member of the abusive Peruvian group Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, and it said Salinas knew the pope when he was a bishop in Peru. The AP said then-Cardinal Robert Prevost helped Francis suppress Sodalitium last year, “thanks in great part” to revelations by Salinas and investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, whose 2015 book “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” exposed the group’s abusive practices.
Gore said in a Substack post after the audience that he briefed Leo on his findings and provided documentation and urged the pope to launch an independent investigation into Opus. Gore also said he had been critical of how the Holy See had handled allegations involving Opus Dei, including that it had never reached out to any former Opus member or victims, and he wrote that the meeting compelled him to reevaluate his earlier conclusions. The AP reported that the Vatican gave no information on the substance of the audience.
Opus Dei did not respond Monday when asked for comment, the AP said, pointing to its earlier statement about the Feb. 16 audience with Leo and to its lengthy criticism of Gore’s book.