The US-centred abuse survivors organisation ‘Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests’ (SNAP) has challenged Pope Leo XIV on May 10th 2025 to ‘address the ongoing sexual abuse catastrophe in the Catholic Church’, saying it is ‘dismayed’ by the new pope’s reaction so far.

Referring to an open letter of May 8th, 2025, SNAP calls for ‘concrete structural reforms’ including:

• An independent Global Truth Commission with full Vatican cooperation;
• A Universal Zero Tolerance Law adopted into canon law;
• International legal agreements mandating transparency and accountability;
• A survivor-funded Reparations Fund supported by church assets;
• And a Global Survivors Council with the authority to oversee and enforce compliance.

SNAP’s open letter to the pope argues that the proposed ‘Global Truth Commission’ should be independent but should have full Vatican co-operation. It would hold regional hearings, document abuse and cover-up, and require full Vatican compliance, ‘including opening of all archives of abuse records’.

The 2022 Irish National Synodal Synthesis called for a ‘reckoning’ on the clerical abuse issue, mentioned as a challenge to ‘mission’ in many of the diocesan synodal reports of that year – and this call was acknowledged subsequently by the Irish Conference of Catholic bishops. However, so far that call has received no recognition in any Rome-published synodal document.

So far the papacy is not known to have initiated any wide-ranging study of the clerical abuse issue, either of its current global scope or of its historical dimensions and origins.  However, the Final Report of the XVIth Synod on Synodality of 2023-24 declares that transparency is ‘a fundamental attitude grounded in the Sacred Scriptures’ (Article 96), stressing its importance in the building of ‘ the trust and credibility needed by a synodal Church’ (Article 97).