Pope Leo XIV stressed the importance of listening to victims of clerical sex abuse during a meeting with cardinals from around the world this week, according to comments released Saturday.

In a speech concluding the two-day, closed-door consistory, the US pope said the abuse of children and vulnerable adults by priests was still a “wound” in the Catholic Church.

“Listening is profoundly important,” Leo said, according to a Vatican transcript, adding: “We cannot close our eyes, nor our hearts.”

He noted that abuse was not a specific topic for discussion during the consistory, his first since taking over as head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in May following the death of Pope Francis.

But he said he wanted to raise it in his closing remarks, saying the scourge was “a problem that still today is truly a wound in the life of the Church in many places.”

“I would like to say, and encourage you to share this with the bishops: many times the pain of the victims has been worsened by the fact that they were not welcomed and listened to,” he said.

“The abuse itself causes a deep wound that can last a lifetime.

“But many times the scandal in the Church is because the door has been closed and the victims have not been welcomed.”

He added: “A victim recently told me that the most painful thing for her was that no bishop wanted to listen to her.”

Some 170 cardinals were present at the Vatican for the consistory on Wednesday and Thursday, where they discussed the future direction of the Church.

Leo invited them to meet again at the end of June, in what the Vatican said would become an annual event.




AFP

In a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times published on Thursday, United States President Donald Trump signalled that the US could undertake multiple military strikes in Nigeria if violence against Christians persists.

Trump, asked whether the December 25 military operation against Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria marked the start of a broader campaign, said, “I’d love to make it a one-time strike… but if they continue to kill Christians, it will be a many-time strike.”

The US strike, which Washington described as targeting Islamic State affiliates at the request of the Nigerian government, drew global attention when it was carried out on Christmas Day.

Trump framed it as a response to what he characterised as repeated killings of Christians by extremist groups in Nigeria, language that has fuelled debate over the motivations behind the intervention.

When pressed about comments from his senior Africa adviser that groups such as Islamic State West Africa Province and Boko Haram had killed more Muslims than Christians in Nigeria, Trump acknowledged that Muslims were also victims.

“I think that Muslims are being killed also in Nigeria. But it’s mostly Christians,” he said.

The Federal Government has rejected claims of a genocide against Christians, pointing out that violent armed groups operate with mixed motives and have killed both Muslims and Christians across the country’s troubled north.

The Nigerian government has emphasised cooperation with international partners in counter-terrorism efforts while reiterating that violence against any community, regardless of faith, is unacceptable.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that the United States was “breaking free from international rules” and “gradually turning away” from some of its allies.

Macron delivered his annual speech to French ambassadors at the Elysee Palace as European powers are scrambling to come up with a coordinated response to assertive US foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere following Washington’s capture of Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro and Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland.

“The United States is an established power, but one that is gradually turning away from some of its allies and breaking free from international rules that it was still promoting recently,” Macron told ambassadors at the Elysee Palace.

“Multilateral institutions are functioning less and less effectively,” Macron added.

“We are living in a world of great powers with a real temptation to divide up the world.”

Macron spoke after US special forces snatched Maduro and his wife from Venezuela on Saturday in a lightning raid and whisked them to New York, sparking condemnation that the United States was undermining international law.

In the wake of his military intervention in Venezuela, President Trump set off alarm bells in Europe by repeating his insistence that he wants to take control of Greenland.

Trump has repeatedly refused to rule out using force to seize the strategic Arctic island, prompting shock and anger from the controlling power, Denmark, and other longstanding European allies.

Copenhagen has warned that any attack would spell the end of the NATO alliance.

The French leader said “global governance” was key in a time when “everyday people wonder whether Greenland is going to be invaded” as well as whether “Canada will face the threat of becoming the 51st state”.

He said it was the right moment to “reinvest fully in the United Nations, as we note its largest shareholder no longer believes in it.”

The White House on Wednesday flagged the US exit from 66 global organisations and treaties — roughly half affiliated with the United Nations — it identified as “contrary to the interests of the United States”.

Macron said Europe must protect its interests and urged the “consolidation” of European regulation of the tech sector.

He stressed the importance of safeguarding academic independence and hailed “the possibility of having a controlled information space where opinions can be exchanged completely freely, but where choices are not made by the algorithms of a few.”

Brussels has adopted a powerful legal arsenal aimed at reining in tech giants — namely through its Digital Markets Act (DMA), which covers competition, and the Digital Services Act (DSA) on content moderation.

Washington has denounced the tech rules as an attempt to “coerce” American social media platforms into censoring viewpoints they oppose.

“The DSA and DMA are two regulations that must be defended,” Macron said.

AFP