Pope highlights plight of vulnerable adults in abuse and meets with top Opus Dei critic

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV indicated growing concern Monday with the next frontier in combatting abuses in the Catholic Church, highlighting the plight of “vulnerable” adults and meeting with an investigative journalist who uncovered alleged abuses in the powerful Opus Dei movement.

Leo held two high-profile, back-to-back audiences Monday focused on abuse: One with the Vatican’s child protection board, which advises the church on sexual abuse prevention strategies, and one with Gareth Gore, author of the book “Opus: The Cult of Dark Money, Human Trafficking and Right-Wing Conspiracy Inside the Catholic Church.”

The American pope clearly wanted the Gore audience publicized. It was listed on his formal agenda and the Vatican released photos of the encounter.

Speaking to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Leo seemed keenly aware that the #MeToo movement had unleashed revelations around the world of abuses committed against adults in vulnerable situations within the church.

They can involve seminarians and nuns who are spiritually, psychologically, physically or sexually abused by their superiors, as well as ordinary parishioners who fall sway to charismatic spiritual leaders who take advantage of them.

The Catholic hierarchy has long looked the other way at such abuses involving adults, directing its focus narrowly on the church's horrific legacy of clergy sexual abuse against children.

The Pontifical Commission is focusing this year on the issue of vulnerability in adults and Leo encouraged its members Monday. He said it was fundamental for the church to listen to victims.

“By reading these ‘signs of the times,’ you help the church to address safeguarding challenges courageously, and respond with pastoral clarity and structural renewal,” he said.

A well-publicized audience with a journalist

Leo has already made clear he is aware of alleged abuses within Opus Dei, the influential movement founded by the Spanish priest Josemaría Escrivá in 1928 that was greatly favored by St. John Paul II.

The movement, known as Work of God in Latin, has 90,000 members in 70 countries.

Gore, a financial journalist and editor, published “Opus” in 2024, detailing alleged financial and other abuses in the organization. Opus Dei sharply rejected the book, issuing a 106-page set of “clarifications” to journalists after it was published.

In 2024, Argentine prosecutors concluded there were grounds for launching a criminal investigation into top South American Opus officials into charges of human trafficking and labor exploitation against 44 women who said they had been recruited to perform domestic tasks in their homes.

Some of the complainants had told AP in 2021 that they had worked under “manifestly illegal conditions” that included working without pay for 12 hours-plus without breaks except for food or prayer, no registration in the Social Security system and other violations of basic rights.

No one has been formally charged in the case.

Opus Dei in Argentina has denied the accusations.

“We categorically deny the accusations of human trafficking and labor exploitation,” said the office of the Prelature of Opus Dei in Argentina in a 2024 statement.

Pope's past in Peru informs his understanding of abuse

In 2022, Pope Francis imposed changes on Opus Dei that curbed its special status in the church: It no longer reports directly to the pope but rather the Vatican office for clergy, and Francis told Opus to rewrite its statutes. A year later, he issued another decree saying the Holy See could write the statutes itself.

Leo signaled from the start of his pontificate that the Opus question was very much on his mind. Six days after his election, on May 14, he met with the Opus moderator, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz Braña.

Last month, on Feb. 16, Leo met with the Opus prelate, or leader, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz and his auxiliary, Monsignor Mariano Fazio. Opus said at the time that the statutes were still a work in progress, and said the officials had briefed Leo on its position “regarding certain specific controversies in Argentina.”

On Monday, Leo met with Gore in an audience facilitated by Pedro Salinas, a former member of the abusive Peruvian group Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, who knew the pope when he was a bishop in Peru.

Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost was instrumental in helping Francis suppress Sodalitium last year, thanks in great part to the revelations of Salinas and investigative journalist Paola Ugaz, who exposed the group’s abusive practices in their 2015 book “Half Monks, Half Soldiers.”

Leo has made clear his esteem for the work of investigative journalists in shedding light on abusive practices in the church.

Gore said in a Substack post after his audience Monday that he briefed Leo on his findings and provided documentation he had uncovered, and had urged Leo to launch an independent investigation into Opus.

The Vatican gave no information on the audience.

Gore recalled that he has been deeply critical of the way the Holy See has handled years of allegations of abusive practices at Opus Dei. He noted, for example, that the Vatican had never reached out to any former Opus member or victims.

“I deduced that the Vatican was content to make a few superficial changes and move on without properly understanding or addressing the problem. But my meeting with the pope compels me to reevaluate those conclusions,” he wrote.

Opus said it had no comment Monday, pointing to its previous statement about its Feb. 16 audience with Leo and its lengthy criticism of Gore’s book.

---

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.