The Vatican confirmed the news on Tuesday afternoon.
Pope Francis will meet with Irish victims of clerical abuse during his trip to Ireland this weekend, it has been confirmed.
Spokesman Greg Burke told reporters at a briefing to present the programme of the Papal visit to Ireland scheduled for 25 and 26 August, that the meeting will not be announced until after it is over and that it will be up to the victims if they want to speak afterwards.
The meeting will be in a strictly private manner, ensuring that the Pontiff can listen to victims.
It is understood that Pope Francis will be meeting a small but varied group of those who've been abused both sexually and institutionally by the Catholic Church — including former inmates of the Magdalene laundries and of the mother and baby homes.
Yesterday, Pope Francis
published a letter addressed to all the "people of God," addressing recent reports of abuse at the hands of the Catholic church.
The letter follows reports that the church covered up abuse by as many as 300 priests across the state of Pennsylvania since 1947.
This reopened the issue for many, stating that his words should be followed by action.
The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin was one of the many to say that is it "not enough" for Church officials to simply apologise for the numerous clerical abuse scandals that have been made public in recent times.
"What can Pope Francis say or do in a visit that will last little more than thirty-six hours," the Archbishop said.
"My hope is that he will speak kindly but also speak frankly.
"The recent history of the Church in Ireland had its moments of real darkness. We need a Church of light, a light that exposes darkness for what it is, and a light that is such that the mechanisms of cover-up and self-justification cannot extinguish or tone down."
Eamon Martin, the primate of the Catholic Church in Ireland, also told BBC News Northern Ireland this week that
he "expects" the Pope to meet with victims of abuse at the hands of the church, and "express the grave sorrow of the church."
Just last week, a grand jury report detailed seven decades of abuse in the US, finding more than 1,000 identifiable minors had been abused by 300 priests in Pennsylvania.
