figures and keys to a scandal shaking the country

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase) estimated on Tuesday that more than 216,000 minors have been victims of priests and religious since 1950 in France, one of the main conclusions of an expected report.

Some 216,000 minors were directly attacked by priests, deacons and religious in France between 1950 and 2020, according to a study by the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm) commissioned by Ciase.

However, this commission chaired by the former senior official Jean-Marc Sauvé specifies that, if we take into account the laity linked to the institutions of the Catholic Church, this figure rises to 330,000 victims during these seven decades.

The Inserm study, based on a survey of 28,000 people, reveals that in France more than 5.5 million people have been sexually assaulted when they were minors: 14.5% of women and 6 , 4% men.

“The Catholic Church is, besides family and friends, the environment where the prevalence of sexual violence is the highest”, we read in the report Ciase. Abuses in the Church, including lay people, are said to represent 6% of the total.

Figures

Following its call for evidence, the Sauvé Commission received 6,471 complaints: 3,652 by telephone, 2,459 emails and 360 by letters. Of all, interviewed around 250 victims of sexual abuse During his childhood.

The number of male aggressors, between priests and religious, it would be of the order of 2,900 to 3,200, which represents 2.5% and 2.8% of the 115,000 who have belonged to the Church over the past 70 years in France, the report explains.

“It is a minimum estimate”, based on the census and analysis of the archives of the Church, justice, the judicial police and the press, as well as testimonies, explained Jean-Marc Sauvé to the AFP agency.

What’s the next step now

The 45 recommendations established by the Sauvé Commission cover a wide range of topics, from listening to victims and reforming canon law, to recognizing the Church’s “systemic” responsibility for the facts.

Experts also recommend that the Church recognizes her “civil and social responsibility”, beyond “penal and civil responsibility” aggressors, in the period analyzed and for the creation of mechanisms for recognizing victims such as public ceremonies, masses or memorials.

In addition to removing those involved in sexual abuse from working with minors and studying how to avoid new cases, Ciase calls on church authorities to clarify that confession secrecy does not cover these crimes, which should be reported to Justice.

Another of the proposals is better support for victims with the creation of a telephone number for complaints and that the possibility, already reported to the Synod of the Amazon, of ordaining married men be studied.

Concerning the priesthood, the report proposes a psychological assessment before entering the seminary and training priests. Another recommendation is to strengthen the presence of lay people and women in decision-making in the Church.

The investigation

Started on February 8, 2019, the investigation of the Sauvé Commission lasted 970 people until the presentation on Tuesday of the report commissioned by the Episcopal Conference (CEF) and the Conference of Religious and Religious of France (Corref).

In addition to Sauvé, former vice-president of the Council of State, the 21 other members of this multi-faceted independent commission are, among others, sociologists, historians, jurists, theologians and psychologists. In total, 12 men and 10 women, unpaid.

Its report of more than 2000 pages is articulated in three axes: “shedding light” on the number of cases, “revealing the dark side” to diagnose the facts and “dispel the darkness” to treat the current victims and prevent further attacks.

The costs

La Ciase estimates the total cost of preparing its report at around 3.8 million euros ($ 4.4 million), but also adding the amounts of work that its members have done on a voluntary basis.

The actual cost for the institutions that commissioned it, CEF and Corref, was 2.6 million euros (approximately $ 3 million), mainly for the reports commissioned from the investigation centers and for the appeal to victims.

The report indicates that both the Episcopal Conference and the Conference of Religious have allocated the necessary financial resources, but without the right to control the relevance of the expenditure, beyond their regularity and accuracy.

Source: AFP

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