Survivors of sex abuse by members of the Catholic clergy have expressed hope after meeting Pope Leo at the Vatican for the first time. Gemma Hickey, board president of Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA Global), told the BBC it spoke volumes he had met them so soon in his papacy. The group is pushing for a global zero-tolerance policy, already adopted in the US, of permanently removing a priest who admits or is proven to have sexually abused a child. The Pope acknowledged there was resistance in some parts of the world to this, Hickey said. The new Pope, who assumed the role in May, has inherited the issue, which has haunted the Catholic Church for decades and the Vatican has struggled to root out.