Pope Leo XIV visited the sanctuary of Lourdes on Sunday, September 27, for a speech before the Conference of French Bishops. A papal mass was expected to be attended by nearly 200,000 people. Before the event, the pope prayed before "the crying child," a photograph displayed on site for five years. The image serves as a memorial for victims of sexual violence in the Church. The photo reproduces the image of a weeping cherub statue in the Sainte-Croix church in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, in Vendée. It was installed in November 2021 on the wall of the hemicycle where the assembly of French bishops meets twice a year. This was during the time they were working on the so-called "Sauvé" report, which the Ciase (Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church) had just submitted. The report estimated that approximately 330,000 minors in France have been victims of sexual violence since 1950. The Archbishop of Reims, then president of the Conference of French Bishops, had declared before this photo that there would be a before and an after this sequence. "Now, I cannot enter a church to celebrate the mystery of life and love stronger than death without bearing the stigma of your face that cries, so poor, so touching, so alone, so distressed, and so dignified especially. All the good in the world cannot redeem the tears of a child," he said. The French bishops acknowledged "the institutional responsibility of the Church in the violence suffered by so many victims and the systemic dimension of these violences," and decided to create the Independent National Instance for Recognition and Reparation (Inirr). Michel, the author of the photo, was abused by a priest during a summer camp when he was eight years old. An enthusiast of photography, he took advantage of the lockdown in April 2021 to travel through Vendée and immortalize nearly 200 places of worship on film. He then had a moving experience facing the grieving little angel. "I completely recognized myself in that face. It is an angel, but I took the photo in such a way that one cannot see its wings, so that it represents a child. Behind, there is a gargoyle, which represents the aggressor. On the side, an impassive lion represents the institution. It seemed to me that this photo said what I could not express with words," he testified to Le Pèlerin. The photo could have remained unknown but was seen during an exhibition by the Bishop of Luçon, Jean-François Jacolin, he explained to Ouest-France. The photo caught the attention of Luc Crépy, president of the Prevention and Fight against Pedophilia Council of the CEF, who asked him for permission to use it for the plenary assembly. A year later, the Bishop of Luçon put up the same photograph in his cathedral at the request of a collective of victims of sexual violence in the Church in Vendée. The photographer, who wishes to remain anonymous, has since written L'imbroglio, a text to accompany his photo and give it meaning. "Imbroglio: in the eyes of the child, the suffering of the violence suffered, the denial of his words and a great solitude are mixed. Later, when he became an adult, the confusion of his childhood will be added to by a anger of having been put in danger and not having been rescued. He will understand that it is the entire culture of a system that wanted to protect itself instead of protecting him. And his confusion continues to deepen around this question: 'Why can't justice be done for him?' It is so vital for him to finally have peace and to stop the tear of his childhood," the text states. Seven victims of sexual violence in the Church will meet the pope in Lourdes this Sunday. In a joint statement, they assured that being received by Leo XIV "does not mean renouncing (their) demands." "Dialogue does not mean endorsing. Being received does not mean renouncing our demands," the statement says, while the announcement of this meeting has sparked the beginning of a controversy. Denouncing an "institutional contempt," a "farce," or a "victims' competition game" with the choice of "isolated victims," some collectives not received criticized the format of this private meeting and the opacity of the selection of interlocutors by the Church. Even the president of the Inirr, Marie Derain de Vaucresson, was surprised by this closed-door meeting. "One could imagine, as France has made a lot of progress on these issues in recent years, that the preparation of a meeting like this could be open to more people," she lamented to RMC. "One could have said that this could be done in two stages. Perhaps 150 or 200 victims could exchange together and agree on a message to bring to the Holy Father." After five years of existence, the Inirr indicated on Tuesday on RMC that 1,765 people have been supported by the body. Victims of assaults, they were between 6 and 15 years old at the time of the incidents. The president had expressed concern in April last year about the expressed willingness of the Conference of French Bishops to replace the Inirr with a device composed of listening cells in the dioceses, before being directed towards restorative approaches managed by an independent national organization.