Pope Francis deplored the sexual abuse of 216,000 children and demanded that representatives of the Church in France take responsibility

Pope Francis expressed shame on Wednesday after the publication of a detailed report devastating report on child sexual abuse within the French Church for decades.

“I want to express to the victims my sadness and my pain for the trauma suffered and also my shame, our shame, for the inability of the Church for a long time to put them at the center of its concerns “Francisco said during Wednesday’s general audience.

The great pontiff He urged French Catholics to “assume their responsibilities so that the Church is a safe home for all”.

A French report released on Tuesday found that about 216,000 children have been sexually abused in the French Catholic Church over the past 70 years, in the first major French recognition of the devastating phenomenon.

The chairman of the commission that published the report, Jean-Marc Sauvé, said the estimate, based on scientific research, includes abuse by priests and other clergy, as well as non-religious people involved in the church. He said about 80% are male victims.

“The consequences are very serious,” said Sauvé. “About 60% of men and women who have been sexually abused face significant problems in their love or sex life.”

The document 2,500 pages written by an independent commission arises when the Catholic Church in France, as in other countries, seeks to confront shameful secrets long hidden.

The report says that some 3,000 aggressors child, two thirds of them are priests, they were working in the church during this period. Sauvé said the total death toll includes some 216,000 people abused by priests and other clergy.

Olivier Savignac, director of the association of victims “Parler et revivre”, which contributed to the investigation, told The Associated Press that the high ratio of victims per attacker is particularly “terrifying for French society, for the ‘Catholic Church. ”.

The commission worked for two and a half years, listening to victims and witnesses and studying church, court, police and press records from the 1950s onwards. A hotline launched at the start of the investigation received 6,500 calls from alleged victims or of people claiming to know a victim.

Sauvé denounced the attitude of the church until the early 2000s as “a deep and cruel contempt for the victims”. “They were not believed or listened to” and, on some occasions, it was suspected that they were “partly responsible” for what happened, he lamented.

Sauvé said 22 alleged crimes that can still be prosecuted have been referred to prosecutors. More than 40 cases too old to prosecute but involving suspected perpetrators still alive have been passed to church officials.

The commission made 45 recommendations on how to prevent abuse. These included training priests and other clergy, revising canon law, the legal code the Vatican uses to govern the church, and promoting policies to recognize and compensate victims, said Safe.

(With information from AFP)

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