Pope Leo XIV met survivors of clergy abuse on Monday (November 9, 2026) during his visit to Argentina, a country that has been reckoning with the Catholic Church’s legacy of sex abuse and cover-up, including in cases in which the Argentine Pope Francis intervened.
Grassi, once a prominent figure who ran homes for orphaned children, is serving a 15-year sentence for sexually abusing a minor. Francis, who at the time was still Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the archbishop of Buenos Aires, in 2010 commissioned a four-volume, 2,000-plus-page forensic study of Grassi’s case that concluded he was innocent, that his victims were lying and that the case never should have gone to trial. Their allegations implicate senior members of Opus, some of whom have been formally accused in a criminal investigation into the women’s claims. Prosecutors have requested that the members be summoned for questioning, but the judge has not ordered it. Opus has denied wrongdoing. Given the ongoing criminal investigation, it is perhaps unlikely that Pope Leo would have intervened by meeting with them in this case. However, in general, the American pope has followed in the footsteps of Francis and to a lesser extent Pope Benedict XVI by meeting with abuse survivors on his foreign trips, and another meeting is expected after he arrives later this week in Peru.
