Survivor's Letter Goes to Pope Through a Cardinal's Hands

A man who says a priest sexually abused him years ago has no way to reach the pope except through the cardinal. So that's the route. Montevideo's Cardinal Daniel Sturla, the top figure of Uruguay's Catholic Church, will hand Pope Leo XIV the man's letter when the pope visits Uruguay from 6 to 8 November 2026, the newspaper El País reported on Saturday 31 October.

Who Has the Power

Sturla told the paper he has met the man several times and promised to pass the letter on. That's the whole mechanism: one survivor, one cardinal, one promise. The survivor doesn't get a seat. He gets a courier.

El País reported that the pope will hold no meetings with alleged victims in Uruguay, because the Church received no request for one, whether from individuals or from organisations. The institution that stands accused of sheltering abusers is the one that fields requests, decides what counts as one, and then reports that none arrived.

The paper's account doesn't name the man or the priest, and doesn't describe what the letter asks. The accused was a foreign priest who was passing through Uruguay, according to El País. There's no sign in the paper's reporting that the allegation has reached prosecutors or a Church tribunal. The contents of the letter and the identity of the priest aren't public. Nor does the paper say whether the pope will reply.

What They're Calling "Healing"

The Holy See Press Office said on Tuesday 27 October that some meetings are planned during the tour with people who are victims of abuse by members of the clergy and the Church. It didn't say in which country. Its statement said the meetings respond to the pope's wish to express closeness to those who have suffered, to build paths to healing and to make the Church a safe place.

The Vatican hasn't said where those meetings will happen or who will take part. Survivors get a promise of closeness. The itinerary stays in the institution's hands.

Vatican News said Leo met survivors in Madrid on 8 June and in Lourdes on 27 September, both behind closed doors. El País added that for the meetings in Spain only the complainants and the pope took part, and both sides promised absolute confidentiality. Before Madrid, Leo had already received at the Vatican members of the board of the group Ending Clergy Abuse, 15 survivors from Belgium and a man abused as a child at a college in Dublin. Papal meetings with survivors aren't new: Vatican News recalls that Pope Benedict XVI held them during his 2008 visit to the United States, 18 years ago.

Secret rooms, mutual silence, a papal audience arranged on the papal calendar. Leo is the first US-born pope, and the US Catholic Church has lived through the clergy abuse crisis. How he treats survivors on this tour is watched closely in the United States.

The Show Around It

While the letter waits in a cardinal's briefcase, the machinery of the visit is already humming. The Uruguayan presidency says official activities will take place at Carrasco airport and Plaza Independencia in Montevideo, with press credentials to be collected on Wednesday 4 and Thursday 5 November.

Uruguay's top football league will play no matches on the weekend of 6 and 7 November because of security needs linked to the visit, Montevideo Portal reported on 30 October. The league's executive board plans to play midweek so the season ends before players' leave begins on 9 December. Entire fixtures rearranged for one visitor.

Montevideo Portal reported on 29 October that more than 20,000 people had registered for the Mass in Paysandú, that 500 volunteers had signed up and that organisers planned 50 entry lanes at the Parque París Londres.

On Saturday 7 November the pope is to visit Casavalle, a low-income area of northern Montevideo, where he will bless a church-backed housing project called Viviendas de Guadalupe and talk with families, El País reported. He'll watch a video on the Church's social work and hear three testimonies. The stay is planned to last about 45 minutes before he goes to the Catholic University. Forty-five minutes for the poor, scheduled between a blessing and a campus.

A wooden cross for the stage, 3 metres (about 10 feet) tall, was made over 20 days by six young people from the state juvenile institute INISA with three instructors, El País said. Youths held by the state built the stage prop.

Uruguay is a small South American republic of fewer than 4 million people, wedged between Argentina and Brazil, and one of the most secular countries in Latin America. Vatican News recalls that Sturla has described his Church in Montevideo as poor, free and very small.

The pope lands on Friday 6 November, and the tour runs to 17 November across Uruguay, Argentina and Peru. The survivor's letter, meanwhile, sits where it's always sat: in the hands of the institution it concerns.