There have been “between 2,900 and 3,200 pedophiles”, men – priests or religious – within the Catholic Church in France since 1950, declared Jean-Marc Sauvé, the president of the Commission which is investigating child crime in the Church. “This is a minimum estimate”, based on the census and examination of archives (Church, justice, judicial police and press) and on the testimonies received by this body, he added. This is a figure to be compared to a general population of 115,000 priests or religious in total over this period of seventy years.
After two and a half years of work, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase) makes the conclusions on Tuesday, in a report, which appendices included, will finally rise to “2,500 pages”, he said. The report will give a quantitative inventory of the phenomenon, and in particular the number of victims. It will compare the prevalence of sexual violence in the Church with that identified in other institutions (sports associations, schools, etc.) and in the family circle.
The commission will also assess the “mechanisms, notably institutional and cultural” which may have favored child crime and will list 45 proposals.