Awake Delivers Heartfelt Survivor Letters to the Vatican This Week
A group of sexual abuse survivors in the Awake community has written deeply personal letters to Pope Leo XIV, describing their experience of harm by Church leaders and their fervent hopes for the Catholic Church. This week, Awake’s Executive Director Sara Larson is carrying this set of 37 letters to the Vatican in Rome, with the goal of ensuring that they are hand-delivered to the new pope.
Awake Executive Director Sara Larson carried survivor letters to the Vatican on Tuesday.
Larson is in Rome to speak at the International Safeguarding Conference, held at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Her talk, “Accompanying Survivors,” shares the wisdom she has learned from walking with hundreds of survivors of abuse by leaders in the Catholic Church. This conference is organized by a group including Fr. Hans Zollner, founder and president of the Institute of Anthropology Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at the Pontifical Gregorian, considered the Vatican’s leading safeguarding expert. He spent nine years as a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors during the pontificate of Pope Francis.
On Tuesday, June 17, Larson presented these letters to Zollner, and she will also deliver a copy to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors this week, with a request that they be passed along to Pope Leo.
The letters were inspired by an interview that then-Cardinal Robert Prevost gave to Vatican Media in 2023, in which he spoke directly about the problem of sexual abuse: “Silence is not an answer. Silence is not the solution. We must be transparent and honest, we must accompany and assist the victims, because otherwise their wounds will never heal. There is a great responsibility in this, for all of us.”
We dare to hope that Pope Leo might share our priorities. Given that Larson would be in Rome, we invited survivors in our community to write to Pope Leo, answering two questions: what do you want Pope Leo to understand about your experience as a survivor, and how do you hope he will address abuse in the Church? These letters are their unfiltered responses. Their voices give witness not only to the painful reality of abuse, but also to the Holy Spirit active in their lives and in our ministry of accompaniment.
Moving Words for the Shepherd of the Church
Most of the letter writers gave us permission to share their words publicly, so we offer this summary of what they wrote to Pope Leo. They are people abused as both children and as adults, both women and men, those who remain committed Catholics and those who have left the Catholic Church. Many letter writers describe the trauma symptoms that they continue to experience years after their abuse.
One woman abused as a teenager wrote: “I want you to know that the effects of this abuse go on for a lifetime … I have spent most of my adult life in and out of counseling. I am now 66 years old.” A 52-year-old abuse survivor who has recovered from drug addiction shared: “I would beg God to let me die in my sleep every night for over a decade.”
Many say the abuse damaged their faith. Others long to participate in sacraments, but persistent trauma symptoms prevent this. One survivor wrote: “Getting abused by a priest destroys your spiritual foundation of all of your beliefs. I felt and still do feel so abandoned by God and it is a struggle to ever trust again. It is difficult to attend Mass and go into a confessional.”
Other letter writers shared that they have managed to maintain a strong faith. “I write to you as both a devoted Catholic and a survivor of clergy sexual abuse,” one survivor said. “While my faith in God remains unshaken, my trust in the institutional Church was shattered when a priest I had known since I was a child exploited his sacred position to abuse me as an adult. I remain Catholic because I believe Christ calls us to truth, justice, and healing. I pray you will lead the Church toward these ideals by acknowledging that protecting adults from clerical exploitation is not just a legal necessity—it is a moral imperative rooted in the Gospel itself.”
Expressing Anger—and Hope
Writers expressed a wide range of feelings, including anger and grief about the way they were treated by Church leaders when they spoke up about their abuse. For example, one woman said, “I am grateful beyond measure for the graces and blessings I have been given, even as I still shake my fists at God and cry out in anger when the survivors I now accompany are rejected by their pastors, their bishops, their fellow parishioners. When I still, to this day, listen to the pain and see the tears of someone who's tried to report, or ask questions, or seek information and been met with a ‘preferential option for the church.’”
Another survivor wrote: “Speaking my truth was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I believed the Church would meet me with compassion and walk beside me in healing. Instead, I was kept at arm’s length. The institution focused on legal protection rather than pastoral care, and in doing so, it turned its back on someone it once called its own.”
Still, some letters expressed a surprising amount of hope. “I write to you today not in anger, but in hope. I’ve worked hard to reclaim my peace, and I’ve come to know that faith can still live—even if it has to rise from the ashes. I believe the Church can lead again, but only if it’s willing to listen. The change I hope to see is a Church that stands with victims—not just in courtrooms, but in their lives.”
Survivors Share Suggestions for Change
In their letters, many survivors offered specific actions that Pope Leo and the Catholic Church might take to ensure healing for survivors and safety for all. These include making changes to canon law, installing abuse survivors in consultant roles, providing education about healthy sexuality and power dynamics for all seminarians, and requiring trauma training for all Church leaders. One survivor suggested holding what she called “an annual, public Mass of Repentance for all the Ways the Church has Hurt the People of God,” while another called for the Vatican to support job placement and training for survivors.
One survivor wrote, “Survivor engagement is not a courtesy—it is a moral necessity. Permanent Survivor Advisory Panels at diocesan and global levels can ensure accountability and transformation as part of the safeguarding ecosystem. Survivors must be included at the start of the process. Their truth-telling and resilience are vital to authentic reform.”
Another person said: “It would be healing for you to write a pastoral letter to those sexually abused by Catholic leaders, both those abused as children and adults and to offer guidance for bishops and priests in how to help those with these types of wounds and religious triggers.”
Many of the survivors urged Pope Leo to make healing the wounds of Church abuse a priority of his pontificate. One letter said, “I am imploring you to use your God-given authority to change the trajectory of the Catholic Church and bring these injustices into the light of Christ and appeal for a universal call to a Holy Spirit-empowered repentance.”
Some letter-writers shared that they are praying for Pope Leo. Many also expressed a deep longing for healing. “Please, own these soul crimes, so we can be freer of them,” one survivor wrote. “Holy Father, please reach out to us and offer us the healing presence of Christ. Please make a space for us in the Church,” another said.
“Pope Leo, please, I am begging you to take this crisis seriously,” one survivor said. “Meet with survivors. Listen to their hearts.”
—Erin O’Donnell
Update 7/16/25: We received confirmation from Bishop Luis Manuel Ali Herrera, the highest-ranking staff official of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, that he personally delivered our survivors' letters directly to Pope Leo XIV.
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