Updated April 25, 2025 at 13:25 PM ET
Juan Carlos Cruz was not always a friend of Pope Francis, but he became one.
Cruz survived abuse in his youth by a notorious Chilean priest. In January 2018, the pope caused a scandal when, visiting Chile, he defended clergy who were accused of letting that abuse continue, saying allegations against them amounted to slander.
When the Vatican's sex crimes investigator looked into the allegations, the pope made an about-face later that year. He apologized and invited Cruz and two other survivors for a visit to the Vatican.
At the time, Cruz said he told the pope, "I don't ever want for you to fall into what other bishops have been falling, which is, blame the survivors, destroy the honor of many victims. And he agreed of course."
That meeting began a close friendship that would continue through the remainder of the life of Pope Francis, who died Monday morning in Vatican City.
In an interview this week with Morning Edition, Cruz said at times he would fly to Rome every two weeks to visit his friend, the pope.
"Last Christmas, he invited me to spend it with him, and we spent all our birthdays together, his and mine. So it was a very beautiful friendship," Cruz told NPR this week.
For Cruz, time with the pontiff meant laughing at his "sometimes Dad jokes" and his teasing about the rivalry between their homelands, Chile and Argentina.
"He told me that I only watched soccer World Cups on TV, while they won," Cruz said, choking up with emotion. "He was so witty and yet so wonderful to everybody. And look, I'm going to miss him."
Beginning in 2021, Cruz served on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, a Vatican commission that advises the Catholic Church on child sexual abuse.
In 2019, the pope issued a decree that requires priests and nuns to report child sexual abuse and its cover-up to the Church, but not to civil authorities.
"I would say that Pope Francis did what no pope did before, which is call the abuse by its name: sexual abuse, abuse of power, abuse of conscience, cover-up. He fired many bishops," Cruz said, adding that he hopes the next pope follows the lead of Pope Francis.
"There are still victims around the world begging for justice. Until we fix that, we will not be able to move forward," Cruz said.
Since the pope's death, advocacy groups have reacted to his legacy on handling sexual abuse. The Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, released a statement lamenting the "tragedy" of his papacy, calling on the next pope to "institute a zero tolerance law for sexual abuse that immediately removes abusive clergy and leaders who have covered up abuse from ministry."
Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a website that tracks allegations against clergy, wrote in a statement: "We needed Pope Francis to permanently remove abusers from ministry and decisively punish enablers. We needed him to rid canon law of its bias in favor of accused priests. We needed him to follow through on his promises of transparency, by releasing abuse data and the names of offending clergy and complicit bishops. Pope Francis chose to do none of these things."
Cruz summed it up this way: "It's a tragedy that Pope Francis couldn't do more. I see from inside and from outside, and survivors agree. Other survivors don't agree. I stand up to cardinals. I stand up to bishops. Even if they kick me out of the Vatican in the next papacy, I'm going to continue doing it because it's horrific that that abuse is still a thing in the church."
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