Photo via Calips/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0), KTOTV/YouTube
October 5, 2021, 11:28 am
A bombshell report by an independent commission hired to investigate the French Catholic church and allegations of sexual abuse has found that the problem has been horrifyingly common, finding over 3,000 sexual abusers with over 330,000 victims in the last 71 years. The commission was set up by church bishops in 2018 as cases of this kind of abuse kept emerging among their own, and the findings have finally been revealed after two and a half years. About 80 percent of the victims were boys, most age 10 to 13.
Featured Video
Hide
“You are a shame to our humanity,” said the head of a group of victims of this abuse, François Devaux. “You have trampled on the obligation of protection of life and human dignity, even though it is the essence of your profession.”
Advertisement
Hide
“You must pay for all these crimes.”
Of the 330,000 victims, around 216,000 were specifically abused by priests and other clergy. The report also found that the church engaged in a “systemic” coverup to keep these abuse cases quiet.
During the press conference announcing these findings, the head of the French bishops’ conference asked these hundreds of thousands of victims for forgiveness. The president of the investigative committee, Jean-Marc Sauvé, however, felt that the victims would be better off with some kind of real compensation, pointing out the deep psychological trauma that can be caused by sexual abuse.
“The consequences are very serious,” he said. “About 60 percent of men and women who were sexually abused encounter major problems in their emotional or sexual life.”
“We consider the church has a debt towards victims.”
Therapy can certainly be expensive, and many of the abuse cases have passed their statue of limitations, meaning they are too old to go to court.
Multiple leaders of victims advocacy groups related to Catholic church abuse spoke during the press conference, with the head of Parler et Revivre (Speak Out and Live Again) Olivier Savignac pointing out the high ratio of abuser to victims and how that points to the failure of the church to address the problem.
Advertisement
Hide
“I perceived this priest as someone who was good, a caring person who would not harm me,” he said. “But it was when I found myself on that bed half-naked and he was touching me that I realized something was wrong … And we keep this, it’s like a growing cyst. It’s like gangrene inside the victim’s body and the victim’s psyche.”
Former priest Bernard Preynat admitted to abusing over 75 boys over a period of decades before anything was done to stop him.
French bishops will be gathering today to consider their next steps. Meanwhile, at least 22 cases have been forwarded to the police for further investigation and possible criminal charges. In spite of some of these rather horrifyingly large numbers, many commenters on this news have expressed that they are not surprised considering how long this has been known to be a problem without the church doing much about it other than trying to cover it up.
Advertisement
Hide
Others have noted with horror that this investigation is limited to France only and have tried to put into context what 330,000 victims over 71 years means.
Advertisement
Hide
Right? This happened in EVERY diocese in EVERY country where Catholicism existed. It’s totally endemic and this shit runs DEEP.
— CyberMindGrrl
(@DSelektra) October 5, 2021
*First Published: October 5, 2021, 11:28 am
0 Comments