Mr Ryan is the first clerical sexual abuse survivor who met the Pope alone since he was appointed in May 2025.<\/p>\n
During the meeting, which lasted for approximately 45 minutes, Pope Leo apologised to David Ryan for what he had gone through.<\/p>\n
Speaking to RT\u00c9 after the audience, Mr Ryan said Pope Leo \u201cfelt his pain\u201d and described him as a \u201clovely man\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust amazing, what a lovely, lovely man. So at ease, we just sat down as if it was just like talking to Mark,\u201d he told RT\u00c9.<\/p>\n
Mr Ryan brought a picture of his brother Mark, who passed away in 2023, who was also an abuse survivor.<\/p>\n
During the audience, they spoke about Blackrock College in Dublin, where David and Mark Ryan had been sexually abused as children during the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe looked at Mark’s photograph and everything, we spoke about Mark,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 62-year-old put a few questions to the Pope, who \u201clistened to him\u201d, and they spoke about each question \u201cin length\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe will do everything he can. I’m not going to say anything yet, but what a lovely man, what an experience. I’ll never forget it.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis sincerity, his empathy. He felt my pain, but he hasn’t experienced my pain; he knows what pain I had gone through and my family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made my day, and I’m so glad I did it, and I think Mark would be happy. And he gave a blessing to Mark’s photograph that I had,\u201d he said, visibly emotional.<\/p>\n
Mr Ryan, who lives in Tipperary, also brought a St Brigid\u2019s cross for the Pope, which the pontiff \u201cloved\u201d, and they spoke about it.<\/p>\n
The Pope said he hoped that more survivors would come forward and speak out about the abuse they suffered.<\/p>\n
“He said he was so sorry to hear of my pain, for my family’s pain, and for the other survivors that haven’t come forward yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd he said, for me speaking to him today, hopefully that some other people will come forward and speak about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CEO of One in Four charity, Deirdre Kenny, also met with the Pope for 10 minutes to speak about the organisation.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, producer of RT\u00c9\u2019s Blackrock Boys documentary from 2022, Liam O\u2019Brien, said it was \u201ccertainly a very emotional meeting\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPope Leo spoke about how he had listened to the documentary,\u201d he told RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s News at One. \u201cHe spoke about specific parts of David’s story that he found very moving.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Mr Ryan is \u201cunbelievably delighted\u201d and \u201creally happy\u201d with today\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
“Considering how far his story has gone, and the effects of his story, in terms of a Garda investigation, the Spiritan schools, commission of investigation, and now, a visit to the Pope, who has listened to his story and has empathised with him.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a first for any survivor to meet Pope Leo in a one-to-one. He has met survivors last autumn, but they were a group of 15 from Belgium and another six.<\/p>\n
“So David was in a one-to-one meeting. It was literally Pope Leo and David in the library overlooking St Peter’s Square for 45 minutes, just the two of them speaking together.<\/p>\n
“So it’s a very intimate and unique meeting. It hasn’t happened before, so I think in that regard, it’s significant,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mr Ryan is the first clerical sexual abuse survivor who met the Pope alone since he was appointed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2540,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-277914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-adrianna-wrona","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}