Abuse survivor David Ryan, who featured in the RTÉ documentary 'Blackrock Boys', has said he received an apology from Pope Leo XIV during a meeting with the pontiff in the Vatican.
Mr Ryan described the experience yesterday as amazing and credited the Pope for his empathy.
Pope Leo, who had listened to the documentary which aired on RTÉ Radio 1, has said that what stood out for him was when David Ryan's father, on learning that his younger son had been abused 20 years previously, called his older son Mark, who also revealed he had been abused.
David said they spoke about Mark for a time, whose photo he brought to the meeting.
The Pope was clearly shocked and apologised for the abuse which had been perpetrated.
"Pope Leo gasped, put his hands to his mouth and over his eyes," Mr Ryan said.
David Ryan is the first abuse survivor to meet the new pontiff in a private audience alone. Mr Ryan said Pope Leo was a "lovely man".
"We spoke about Mark. He just listened to me. I put my questions to him. And we spoke about each question in length and he will do everything he can ... What a lovely man, a wonderful experience. I'll never forget it," he said.
"His sympathy, his empathy for survivors... he felt it, and he was sorry and it was genuine and I knew it was genuine."
"His sincerity, his empathy. He felt my pain, but he hasn't experienced my pain, but he knows what pain I have gone through and my family.
"What an experience to have, it made my day. I’m so glad I did it and I think Mark would be happy. He gave a blessing to Mark's photo that I had," he said.
"He said he was so sorry to hear of my pain, for my family's pain, and for the other survivors who haven't come forward yet, and he said from me speaking to him today he hoped other people would come forward and speak about it."
Mr Ryan said he had questions for Pope Leo, which the Pontiff addressed at the meeting verbally, however, he added that he would reply to them in more depth.
Mr Ryan said he felt the Pope was genuine in his responses.
"He was sorry and I felt it," Mr Ryan said, adding that Pope Leo "took a deep breath" before he answered each question put to him.
Mr Ryan told the Pope he was not very religious, which Pope Leo said was fine.
David Ryan presented Pope Leo with a little pin of St Brigid's Cross - which he been wearing earlier - "as a gift from Ireland, and he was so taken aback and he looked at it and he just said, 'thank you'."
As well as speaking about Mark and the impact of the abuse on the wider Ryan family, the two men mainly talked about Blackrock College and St Declan's School on Northumberland Road where David was also abused as a small child prior to attending secondary school.
Mr Ryan expressed hope that others would respond to the meeting by coming forward and speaking up and realising it is not their fault.
One in Four CEO Deirdre Kenny, who was there to support David, was invited into the room towards the end of the meeting.
Pope Leo asked her about One in Four and thanked her for the work of the organisation.
She described the meeting as relaxed, chilled and human.
Mr Ryan wore cufflinks that belonged to Mark, along with an unworn shirt also given to him by his older brother before died in 2023.
Both brothers were abused by Spiritan priests, neither knowing of the other's plight at the time.
Three years on from when they first met, the producer of the 'Blackrock Boys' documentary described the day as surreal.
Speaking on RTÉ's News At One, Liam O'Brien said that from Mr Ryan's perspective it was a very emotional meeting, adding that Pope Leo spoke about specific parts of David's story from the documentary that he found very moving.
He said the meeting lasted roughly 45 minutes.
Ahead of the meeting he said that: "Nowhere in our wildest dreams of his or mine did we think it would materially lead to anything like this.
"David just wants to sit down with the head of the Catholic Church and, I guess, eyeball him in a way and tell him what happened in his life; tell him the effect it had on him, his brother, his family, his parents, his wider community, his friends, and the country as a whole."
Mr O'Brien added: "David is unique in that he has lived that experience and so he's able to get a really simple message to the most powerful figure in the Catholic Church."
Private audiences are rare and typically reserved for high-profile individuals like heads of state, officials and bishops.
The Vatican confirmed that since his election in May last year, Pope Leo has met privately with victims and survivors of abuse on two previous occasions.
He met with members of the board of End Clergy Abuse, a coalition representing clergy sexual abuse survivors from more than 30 countries, in October.
In November, he met 15 people from Belgium who were victims of clerical abuse when they were minors.
Therefore, Mr Ryan is the first survivor of abuse to have had a private audience with Pope Leo alone.
