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According to reports, in the past seven years, French Catholic clergy have committed terrible acts against children.According to a new report by church officials, there are an estimated 216,000 children Have experienced sexual abuse In the hands of the church. The survey results also concluded that the church “puts protection agencies above the victims.”
According to reports, the French Catholic Church employed “2,900 to 3,200 abusers” from 1950 to 2020. These abusers worked among 115,000 pastors and other clergy. To make matters worse, when non-clerical abusers in Catholic schools and youth programs were included in the statistics, the number of victims rose to approximately 330,000.
According to the report’s findings, “Apart from family and circle of friends, the Catholic Church has the highest incidence of sexual violence.”
How the report is formed
The report had been brewing for about three years before it was released on Tuesday.According to CNN, an independent committee Started their investigation In 2018, at the request of church officials, including the French Catholic clergy group. It was paid by the French Catholic Bishops Conference.
An interdisciplinary team of 21 members prepared the report on behalf of the Church Independent Committee on Sexual Abuse (CIASE). The team has a different religious background and is led by President Jean-Marc Sauvé.
They were allowed to visit the archives of the parish and religious institutions to assist in the investigation. However, the committee also collected testimonies from nearly 6,500 people, thereby identifying 2,700 victims of abuse. Archives and news reports helped identify another 4,800 victims.
Systemic failure
Jean-Marc spoke about the findings of the investigation at a press conference on Tuesday. He clarified that this kind of abuse is indeed systemic and not “a few black sheep who deviate from the herd.”
The report stated: “In the face of this scourge, for a long time, the Catholic Church’s direct response has been to protect itself as an institution. It has shown complete and even cruel indifference to those who have been abused.”
Jean-Marc said that “the abuse of minors in the church” accounts for 4% of all sexual violence in France, which is shocking. Although more than half of the abuse occurred before 1969, Jean-Marc clarified that it was not over yet. According to the report, the number of abused children stopped declining in the early 1990s.
“The problem is not behind us, it still exists,” Jena-Marc said.
What’s next
In addition to disclosure, the report also made 45 recommendations, including the classification of sexual violence as a “dead work.” It also suggested: changing the secret of the confession, conducting a “psychological assessment” for the apprentice priest, legal training for the priest, financial compensation and formal recognition of the victim.
“It has nothing to do with charity or saving the victim,” Jean-Marc said. “This is just to repair the church’s responsibility…damage,” Sauve said. “This is actually a debt owed by the church to the victim.”
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