Shemaine Bushnell Kyriakides
An independent commission investigating child sexual abuse in the French Catholic church, headed by Jean-Marc Sauve, submitted their findings today to the president of the Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF).
According to the 2,500 page report, more than 3,000 paedophiles were active in the French Catholic church since 1950, of which two-thirds of the abusers were priests.
the high ratio of victims per abuser is particularly “terrifying for French society, for the Catholic Church."
Moreover, over the past 70 years, an estimated 330,000 children were victims of sex abuse within the French Catholic church. 80% of them boys from various backgrounds.
The Associated Press reported that the research was conducted over a span of 2 years and involved listening to victims and witnesses, studying church, court, police and press archives starting from all the way back to the 1950s.
Olivier Savignac, head of victims association “Parler et Revivre” (Speak out and Live again), who contributed to the probe, told The Associated Press that the high ratio of victims per abuser is particularly “terrifying for French society, for the Catholic Church.” According to the numbers, there was one abuser for every 70 children.
The commission also published recommendations about how to prevent abuse which included training priests and other clerics, revising Canon Law — the legal code the Vatican uses to govern the church — and fostering policies to recognize and compensate victims.
Back in 2019, Pope Francis issued a ground-breaking new church law requiring all Catholic priests and nuns around the world to report clergy sexual abuse and cover-ups by their superiors to church authorities.
The report is expected to be studied closely by the Vatican.
