In interview, Pope talks about Abuse Crisis, Gaza, AI and following Pope Francis

by CNS · September 19, 2025

POPE LEO XIV GENERAL AUDIENCE AUG. 6, 2025

With a U.S. flag in the background, Pope Leo XIV waves to the crowd from the popemobile as he rides around St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican before his weekly general audience Aug. 6, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)

By Cindy Wooden, (CNS) – For journalist Elise Allen’s biography, “Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century,” Pope Leo spoke about a range of issues, including the abuse crisis the war in Gaza, the role of women in the church, and the celebration of the pre-Vatican II Mass in Latin.

Abuse Crisis

Clerical sexual abuse continues to be “a real crisis,” one that the Catholic Church still must learn to deal with, particularly in improving the way it helps survivors while also ensuring the rights of the accused are respected, Pope Leo XIV said.

“It would be naive for myself or for anyone” to think that dismissing the offender and giving the victim a financial settlement completely solves a case, “as if those wounds are just going to go away because of that,” the pope said in an interview for a book by Elise Allen, a journalist.

Pope Leo said that while the church has enacted tougher laws and policies to prevent and punish abuse, it cannot say that the crisis is over.

“This will continue to take time because victims must be treated with great respect and with an understanding that those who have suffered very deep wounds because of abuse sometimes carry those wounds for their entire life,” he said.

“Statistics show that well over 90% of people who come forward and make accusations, they are authentically victims. They are telling the truth. They are not making this up,” he said. “But there have also been proven cases of some kind of false accusation. There have been priests whose lives have been destroyed because of that.”

Gaza

Regarding the war in Gaza, Pope Leo told Allen that “the word genocide is being thrown around more and more. Officially, the Holy See does not believe that we can make any declaration at this time about that. There’s a very technical definition about what genocide might be, but more and more people are raising the issue, including two human rights groups in Israel.”

Marriage, Women in the Church & pre-Vatican II Mass

The pope said he also intends to continue Pope Francis’ welcoming approach to LGBTQ Catholics while not changing church teaching, especially the Catholic vision of marriage as being between one man and one woman committed to each other for life and open to having children.

He said he also would “continue in the footsteps of (Pope) Francis” by appointing women to leadership roles in the church, “recognising the gifts that women have that can contribute to the life of the church.”

Studying the question of ordaining women to the diaconate will continue, he said, but he did not expect church policy to change any time soon, especially since the permanent diaconate is still not valued throughout the church. “Why would we talk about ordaining women to the diaconate if the diaconate itself is not yet properly understood and properly developed and promoted within the church?” he asked.

On continuing requests for greater access to celebrations of the pre-Vatican II Mass, Pope Leo said the Mass has been caught up in “a process of polarisation — people have used the liturgy as an excuse for advancing other topics. It’s become a political tool, and that’s very unfortunate.”

On AI

Pope Leo XIV said a proposal to create an AI-version of him so people could have a virtual audience with the pope pretty much horrified him. “If there’s anybody who should not be represented by an avatar, I would say the pope is high on the list,” he said. “Someone recently asked for authorisation to create an artificial me so that anybody could sign on to this website and have a personal audience with ‘the pope,'” he told Allen. “This artificial intelligence pope would give them answers to their questions, and I said, ‘I’m not going to authorise that.'”