Report: 330,000 children victims of church sex abuse in France

By Sylvie Corbet | Associated Press

PARIS — Victims of maltreatment wrong France’s Catholic Church welcomed a historical turning constituent Tuesday aft a caller study estimated that 330,000 children successful France were sexually abused implicit the past 70 years, providing the country’s archetypal accounting of the worldwide phenomenon.

The fig includes abuses committed by immoderate 3,000 priests and an chartless fig of different radical progressive successful the religion — wrongdoing that Catholic authorities covered up implicit decades successful a “systemic manner,” according to the president of the committee that issued the report, Jean-Marc Sauvé.

The 2,500-page papers was issued arsenic the Catholic Church successful France, similar successful different countries, seeks to look up to shameful secrets that were agelong covered up. Victims welcomed the study arsenic agelong overdue and the caput of the French bishops’ league asked for forgiveness from them.

The study said the tally of 330,000 victims includes an estimated 216,000 radical abused by priests and different clerics, and the remainder by religion figures specified arsenic scout leaders oregon campy counselors. The estimates are based connected a broader probe by France’s National Institute of Health and Medical Research into intersexual maltreatment of children successful the country.

The study’s authors estimation 80% of the church’s victims were boys, portion the broader survey of intersexual maltreatment recovered that 75% of the wide victims were girls.

The autarkic committee urged the religion to instrumentality beardown action, denouncing its “faults” and “silence.” It besides called connected the Catholic Church to assistance compensate the victims, notably successful cases that are excessively aged to prosecute via French courts.

“We see the religion has a indebtedness towards victims,” Sauvé said.

Francois Devaux, caput of the victims’ radical La Parole Libérée (The Liberated Word), said it was “a turning constituent successful our history.” He denounced the coverups that permitted “mass crimes for decades.”

“But adjacent worse, determination was a betrayal: betrayal of trust, betrayal of morality, betrayal of children, betrayal of innocence,” helium added.

Martine, 73, and Mireille, 71, were sexually assaulted by a clergyman erstwhile they were teenage girls successful precocious school. They some declined to springiness their past sanction owed to privateness reasons, successful portion due to the fact that immoderate household members were not alert of the abuses.

“It brings connected specified unspeakable thoughts,” Martine said. “For me, personally, I had to hold for my parents to die” due to the fact that different she said it was “not possible” to talk out.

“I deliberation that each unfortunate experienced it arsenic if they were the lone 1 (victim), and that’s portion of this improvement involving power and secrecy,” Mireille said. “We are successful a information of submission … successful a intelligence captivity. So, we travel this idiosyncratic who abruptly takes powerfulness implicit america … We are caught successful a spider web.”

A designation of the responsibility is essential, she said, and fiscal compensation is “really symbolic … it won’t hole things but it means it volition besides outgo them something.”

Olivier Savignac, the caput of victims relation Parler et Revivre (Speak Out and Live Again), contributed to the investigation. He told The Associated Press that the precocious ratio of victims per abuser was peculiarly “terrifying for French society, for the Catholic Church.”

Savignac assailed the religion for treating specified cases arsenic idiosyncratic anomalies alternatively of arsenic a corporate horror. He described being abused astatine property 13 by the manager of a Catholic abrogation campy successful the southbound of France who was accused of assaulting respective different boys.

“I perceived this clergyman arsenic idiosyncratic who was good, a caring idiosyncratic who would not harm me,” Savignac said. “But it was erstwhile I recovered myself connected that furniture half-naked and helium was touching maine that I realized thing was incorrect … It’s similar gangrene wrong the victim’s assemblage and the victim’s psyche.”

The clergyman yet was recovered blameworthy of kid intersexual maltreatment and sentenced successful 2018 to 3 years successful prison, including 1 twelvemonth suspended.

The committee worked for 2 1/2 years, listening to victims and witnesses and studying church, court, constabulary and quality archives starting from the 1950s. Sauvé denounced the church’s cognition until the opening of the 2000s arsenic “a deep, cruel indifference toward victims.”

“Sometimes religion officials did not denounce (the enactment abuses) and adjacent exposed children to risks by putting them successful interaction with predators,” helium stressed.

The president of the Conference of Bishops of France, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, said French bishops “are appalled” astatine the conclusions of the report.

“I privation connected that time to inquire for pardon, pardon to each of you,” helium told the victims.

“No 1 expected specified a precocious fig (of victims) to travel retired of the survey and that is decently frightening and retired of proportionality with the cognition that we’ve had connected the ground,” helium told the AP.Luc Crepy, the bishop of Versailles who heads an bureau warring pedophilia, said “this is much than a shock. It is simply a heavy feeling of shame.”

Crepy said a process was underway to enactment unneurotic funds and make an autarkic committee to grip religion compensation for the victims.

The study comes aft a ungraded surrounding now-defrocked clergyman Bernard Preynat rocked the French Catholic Church. Last year, Preynat was convicted of sexually abusing minors and fixed a five-year situation sentence. He admitted abusing much than 75 boys for decades.

Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said Pope Francis learned astir the report’s findings “with sorrow.”

“His thoughts spell successful archetypal spot to the victims, with a profound sadness for their wounds and gratitude for their courageousness to talk out,” helium said.

Francis issued successful May 2019 a groundbreaking caller religion instrumentality requiring each Catholic priests and nuns to study clergy intersexual maltreatment and cover-ups by their superiors to religion authorities. In June, Francis said a process of betterment was indispensable and each bishop indispensable instrumentality work for the “catastrophe” of the enactment maltreatment crisis.

The shocking estimation of much than a 4th cardinal imaginable victims dwarfs numbers released by different countries that person besides faced nationalist reckoning with religion intersexual abuse. But each state has investigated the occupation successful antithetic ways.

Instead of limiting itself to circumstantial cases, France’s study made an estimation of the wide standard of the problem, extrapolating the fig of victims based connected survey of circumstantial incidents and nationwide surveys.

Masha Macpherson contributed from Paris and Nicolas Vaux-Montagny contributed from Lyon, France.