An inquiry into Catholic Church sex abuse in France estimates that 216,000 children, mostly young boys, were molested by French priests over the past 70 years.
The 2,500 page report estimates that as many as 3,200 priests and clerics were abusers, representing 2.7% of France’s clergy. The estimates are from interviews with more than 200 victims, written testimonies from more than 2,800 victims, 6,400 calls to a special hotline, and an in-depth study of 1,600 cases. Further, the report’s authors initiated a poll of 28,000 people to make overall projections of Church sex abuse based on demographic data. The number is estimated to vary in either direction by as many as 50,000 individuals.
The reason the sex abuse in the Catholic Church was so widespread and devastating compared to society at large is not that the French Church had more pedophiles, but because the Church covered up reports. The cover up was conducted in a “systemic manner,” according to Jean-Marc Sauvé, the head of the report.
Sauvé continued in the report: “Faced with this scourge, for a very long time the Catholic Church’s immediate reaction was to protect itself as an institution and it has shown complete, even cruel, indifference to those having suffered abuse.”
Olivier Savignac, the head of victims association Speak Out and Live Again, told the Associated Press that the high ratio of victims per abuser is “terrifying for French society, for the Catholic Church.”
The study was conducted over two-and-a-half years, and researchers examined police reports, interviews, and internal documents. Still, the results appeared to catch Church officials by surprise.
The president of the Conference of Bishops of France, Eric De Moulins-Beaufort, asked for the victim’s forgiveness.
“No one expected such a high number [of victims] to come out of the survey and that is properly frightening and out of proportion with the perception that we’ve had on the ground,” He said to the Associated Press.
French officials promised to create a fund to compensate victims.
The report found that the statute of limitations had been exceeded for many of the predators, putting a significant number of abusers beyond the reach of prosecution.
Sister Veronique Margron, president of the Conference of Religious Orders, responded to the report, saying: “If the Church must tremble, we’ll let it tremble.”
Looking forward, the report provided a glimmer of hope to the French faithful as it found that the sex abuse epidemic appears to have ended by the early 2000s.
In addition, Pope Francis instituted new rules in 2019 that explicitly require all Catholic priests and nuns to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to Church authorities. In June 2021, Pope Francis criminalized sex abuse under Canon Law in the largest overhaul in 50 years.
“I would like to express to the victims my sadness, sorrow for the trauma they have suffered and also my shame, our shame, for the church’s inability, for too long, to put them at the centre of its concerns,” Francis said at his weekly general audience on October 6 in reference to the sexual abuse allegations in France.
Nick Letts is a former “radical atheist” who converted to Protestantism as a senior in High School, and then converted to Catholicism as a Junior in college. He studies philosophy in the Morrissey College, and loves nothing more than to curl up with a good book. He is engaged to his lovely fiancée Katherine Brown.
- Is BC Still Catholic? - April 27, 2023
- See, Here is Water - March 26, 2023
- Why Catholics Can Get Married Young - February 23, 2023