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According to a report on sexual abuse in the French Catholic church, an estimated 216,000 minors had been abused by clergy since 1950.
After a succession of sexual abuse scandals throughout the world, many of which involved children, the disclosures in France are the latest to shake the Roman Catholic church.
According to Jean-Marc Sauvé, the head of the commission that compiled the report, the abuse was widespread. Sauvé went on to say that the church had demonstrated “deep, utter, and even cruel indifference for years,” protecting itself rather than the victims, at a public, online presentation of the study.
He said that the church not only failed to take the required steps to avoid abuse, but also neglected to report it and willfully placed children in the hands of predators. Some of the cases had been reported to state prosecutors, according to Sauvé.
The archbishop of Reims and chairman of the French conference of bishops, Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, spoke soon after Sauvé during the presentation of the report, expressing regret, asking for pardon, and promising to act.
The committee was founded by Catholic bishops in France in 2018 to bring abuses to light and restore public trust in the church at a time when its numbers are decreasing. It has operated outside of the church.
The problem, according to Sauvé, is still present. He went on to say that the church had been indifferent to victims until the 2000s, and that it had only begun to change its mind in 2015-16.
The Catholic church’s teaching on topics like sexuality, obedience, and the sanctity of the priesthood contributed to the creation of blind spots that allowed clergy sexual abuse, according to Sauvé, who added that the church needed to reform the way it approached those issues in order to regain society’s trust.
Through a call for testimony, the panel identified around 2,700 victims, and thousands more were discovered in archives, according to Sauvé.
However, a wide-ranging assessment by research and polling organisations found that there had been roughly 216,000 victims, with the number rising to 330,000 if abuse by lay members is included.
Over the last 70 years, there have been around 2,900-3,200 alleged paedophiles in the French church, according to Sauvé.
“There have been heinous mass crimes committed in this horror… Even worse, there has been betrayal of trust, betrayal of morale, and betrayal of children.”
He expressed gratitude to the commission and expressed hope that the report would be a watershed moment: “You finally bring victims formal recognition of the church’s responsibility.”
