Pope Leo XIV spends 60 minutes with five Argentine abuse survivors
The private meeting occurred before the pope addressed a crowd of 2.5 million in Buenos Aires, a nation lacking a comprehensive national investigation into clergy abuse.
By Simon Bennett ·
Pope Leo XIV spent more than an hour on Monday, Nov. 9, listening individually to five individuals who said they were abused by clergy or Church institutions in Argentina. The Holy See Press Office confirmed the private encounter, which took place in Buenos Aires. The pope spoke with each survivor separately to hear their accounts of their experiences and their suggestions for improving the Church's path to healing.
The local Church presented the five survivors to the pope. At the end of the hour-long session, Pope Leo greeted the group, blessed them, and thanked them for their testimony of faith. The Vatican statement noted that the pope conveyed his closeness to the five and to other victims whom he could not meet. He expressed a commitment to strengthening measures for protection, well-being, welcome, and accompaniment within the Church.
This meeting marked the second day of Pope Leo's visit to Argentina. Earlier in the day, he celebrated Mass at the Monumento de los Españoles in Buenos Aires. Local authorities estimated that approximately 2.5 million people attended the service. Following the meeting with survivors, the pope traveled to the Catholic University of Argentina to speak with representatives of the world of work.
The encounter highlights the ongoing scrutiny of the Church's handling of abuse in Argentina. The country has not conducted a nationwide investigation or public accounting of abuse cases similar to those carried out in the United States, Australia, France, and Germany. As a result, the full dimensions of the crisis in Argentina remain unknown to the public.
BishopAccountability.org, a U.S.-based watchdog group, lists nearly 100 priests, religious brothers, and women religious who are publicly accused of abusing minors or vulnerable adults in Argentina. Additional allegations remain under criminal or canonical investigation. The Argentine bishops have established a national safeguarding council and issued guidelines for handling allegations, but survivors and advocates criticize the lack of a comprehensive national accounting and the limited information available regarding canonical proceedings.
Several high-profile cases have defined the crisis in the country. Father Julio César Grassi, a once-prominent priest who ran homes for disadvantaged children, was convicted in 2009 of sexually abusing and corrupting a minor. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison. While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires and president of the Argentine bishops' conference, the future Pope Francis commissioned a four-volume study that challenged the criminal case against Grassi. Grassi remains in prison, with his sentence set to end in May 2028. He remains a priest but is prohibited from publicly exercising ministry while awaiting a definitive Vatican decision.
At the Antonio Próvolo Institute in Mendoza, deaf and hearing-impaired children were sexually abused between 2005 and 2016. In 2019, Fathers Horacio Corbacho and Nicola Corradi were sentenced to 45 and 42 years in prison, respectively. Father Corradi died while under house arrest. In September, former nun Kumiko Kosaka was sentenced to 20 years for her role in the abuse and mistreatment of students at the institute.
The case of Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta, one of Pope Francis's first episcopal appointments, is also closely watched. Bishop Zanchetta resigned as bishop of Orán in 2017 and later took a position in the Vatican's financial administration. Pope Francis acknowledged that he initially accepted Zanchetta's defense against allegations involving sexual images found on his phone. An Argentine court convicted Zanchetta in 2022 of sexually abusing two seminarians and sentenced him to four years and six months in prison. His conviction became final in February 2025, and he was conditionally released in September of that year. The Vatican has not announced the outcome of its canonical proceeding.
Pope Leo's visit to Argentina is part of a larger reckoning across Latin America. He is scheduled to travel to Peru next, where he previously served as bishop of Chiclayo. In Peru, he helped survivors of the now-suppressed Sodalitium Christianae Vitae obtain a Vatican investigation and reparations.
