On May 11, the first Sunday of his papacy, Pope Leo XIV appeared at the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica to address the crowd awaiting him. He called on youngsters to answer the call “priesthood and other religious” callings, with a firm and direct appeal: “Don’t be afraid! Accept the invitation of the Church and Christ our Lord!”

Below, in St Peter’s Square, survivors of sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic Church greeted those words with rejection. “Youngsters are afraid. Victims are afraid and the Pope needs to say, in so many words, that raping children within the Church is a crime and will be punished,” said Sarah Pearson, spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests campaign group, otherwise known as SNAP.

Members of the group were at the Vatican – as they had been during the conclave to select the new leader of the Catholic Church – to demand answers in what would come to be the first days of Robert Prevost’s papacy.

France and Spain are the countries with the highest official recorded numbers of sexual abuse in the world. In the last 80 years, it is estimated that there were over 655,000 victims in these nations. Based on a study conducted by the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE) reported in 2021 that approximately 330,000 minors had been victims of abuse in France since 1950. Another report estimates that approximately 440,000 people in Spain may have been victims of sexual abuse related to the Catholic Church.

Still in Europe, Portugal and Poland have significant figures, the former with an estimated 4,815 sexual abuse cases between 1950 and 2022.