VATICAN CITY — With pews emptying and clouds of scandal hanging over the church, the Vatican on Wednesday opened a three-week assembly to discuss how to bring young people into the fold.

As the gathering began, Pope Francis said, “This moment has highlighted a church that needs to listen.”

The pope has said he wants to hear the doubts and criticisms of young people. But the scene not far from the Synod of Bishops, as the assembly is known, suggested that the Roman Catholic Church has its work cut out for it.

As synod participants chanted and prayed, some two dozen survivors of clerical sexual abuse were protesting just off the road to St. Peter’s Basilica. They had traveled from parts of Italy and elsewhere in Europe to denounce what they see as the Vatican’s indifference to their demands that abusive priests — and those who covered up for them — be pursued.