MADRID – As Spanish society still reels from a wave of clerical abuse scandals, Pope Leo on his third day in Madrid met with a small group of victims who shared their stories and offered proposals for future action.

According to a Vatican statement, the pope Monday afternoon spent nearly an hour meeting with six victims of abuse by clergy and ecclesial personnel in Spain, who were accompanied by pastoral workers engaged in accompanying survivors.

“In the course of the conversation, which lasted almost an hour, beginning with their own painful experiences, each one present offered the pope some proposals for making the Church’s response to such dramatic cases more efficient,” a statement said.

The pope, the Vatican said, listened to the victims “with affection and attention” and assured of his closeness and that “of the entire ecclesial community,” voicing his commitment to ensuring that their proposals “would be a foundation for further efforts and that the church can truly be a safe and spiritual healthy place, where wounds find comfort and healing.”

A Vatican source said the perception of the meeting “is that the pope took on the pain of the victims.”

Outside of the meeting, three victims of abuse who were not invited to participate came as a sign of protest, arguing that local ecclesial officials had only selected those interested in engaging in a process of reparation with the church.

Spain for the past three years has been marred by a massive clerical abuse crisis, which has worsened rising secularism in the Catholic nation.

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A 2023 investigation by Spain’s human rights ombudsman which reported that since 1940, over 400,000 Spaniards suffered abuse by members of the clergy.

In his greeting to Pope Leo following the pontiff’s arrival in Madrid Saturday, King Felipe VI lauded the Church’s many contributions to art, culture, and civil society through its social and charitable projects, while also acknowledging the pain caused by the abuse crisis.

“There can be no greater contrast” to the church’s good works and contributions to society “than the pain caused by cases of abuse, which neither are nor can be representative of the immense ecclesial community.”

He praised the church’s “clarity and firmness” in the face of the scandals, which he said, “are essential in the healing process and the reparation of the harm inflicted: They are essential for the victims, for the faithful, for the Church, and for society.”

Pope Leo himself acknowledged the abuse crisis in a meeting with bishops earlier that morning, telling Spain’s pastors that one of the most “painful encounters” they will have in their ecclesial careers “is with those who have been wounded precisely by those who were supposed to care for them, including members of the clergy.”

“Faced with this scourge, the ecclesial community is called to respond with listening, truth, justice, reparation and an ever more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care,” he said.

In this regard, the pope stressed that “every wounded person must be able to find sincere listening, welcome, protection and real paths to healing.”