Catholic Church: “A shame for humanity”

France is shaken: Since 1950, 330,000 children and young people have been victims of sexual violence in the Catholic Church and its institutions, a commission has brought to light.

The silence in the Paris press room is overwhelming when François Devaux – himself a victim of abuse and founder of the “La Parole Libérée” association – steps onto the podium. “What you have to understand, gentlemen, is that you are a disgrace to humanity,” Devaux said to the representatives of the bishops and the Pope’s ambassador who were present. In an almost threatening tone, he asks them: “You have to pay for each of these crimes!”

Most of the perpetrators and victims were male

The independent Ciase investigative commission identified around 3,000 potential perpetrators between 1950 and 2020. 95 percent of them are men, mostly priests, religious and other church workers.

The almost 3,000-page report also shows that 80 percent of the victims were boys, on average between ten and 13 years old. Almost a third of the crimes are rape.

Systematic looking the other way and covering up

Commission President Jean-Marc Sauvé criticized the Catholic Church for decades: “Above all, there was a pattern of negligence, neglect, silence and institutional cover-up that had a systemic character.”

Until the early 2000s there was a total and cruel indifference towards the victims, according to Jean-Marc Sauvé.

In order to shed light on the dimension of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the independent Ciase Commission was set up by the French Bishops’ Conference in 2018. For almost three years, the 22-member committee consisting of lawyers, psychologists, sociologists as well as historians, doctors and theologians researched – in archives of the church, the judiciary, the police and the press.

Bad reports from those affected

The main source, however, was thousands of witness interviews. A painful process, said Commissioner Alice Casagrande, quoting one of the victims: “To break this silence you need a courage that no one can imagine who has not experienced this hell himself. It is like walking down from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower fall, “said one victim. “I haven’t slept all summer thinking about testifying.”

For many of those affected, participation in the report has already had a healing effect, said Sauvé, the head of the commission.

The independent committee has now also presented a catalog of measures with 45 suggestions for preventing abuse. Among other things, it calls for more transparency, compensation payments for the victims and a reform of canon law.

Above all, it recommends the Catholic Church to recognize its systematic responsibility – and to bear the social and civil law consequences.

Bishops’ Conference apologizes

“The time of naivety and ambiguity is over,” promised the chairman of the French Bishops’ Conference, Éric De Moulins-Beaufort. He expressed “shame and horror” and asked for “forgiveness”. The report is a confirmation that one should not let up in the educational work, so the bishop. However, nothing was said about specific amounts of compensation.