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The sinister link between clergy and child abuse is not new, but a report on this scourge in the French Church exposed the dimensions of the problem. Around 216,000 children were sexually abused by bishops and priests in the country from 1950 to 2020. But the number could exceed 300,000 if assaults by lay members of the Church are included.
The pages of the report describe one nightmare after another and a way of operating marked by impunity. The sexual abuse of children by the clergy of the Catholic Church in France was “systematic”, as was the silence that the institution has maintained. According to the investigation, the religious organization not only concealed the heinous crimes, but allowed them to continue to occur.
Revelations that are difficult to assimilate but that do not surprise many experts, who find one of the roots of the conflict in the structure of cover-up that surrounds the formation of the priests themselves. “In many of the attacks that occurred within the seminaries, the young man who entered could observe them, some left and others denounced them to their superiors, who told them ‘silence, we cannot tell about it for the Church.’ Under this fear, they obviously began to hide many abuses ”, assures Marcial Sánchez Gaete, doctor in History and expert in the History of the Catholic Church.
But the French Church is not the only one. The report was added to research from other countries that in recent years sought to show the dimension of this crisis. One of abuses that begins by violating the conscience of the victim.
“Confession is so important for the Catholic world because you expiate your sins, you are the one who stands under the wing of a priest to be able to comment to him, talk to him about your sins and he is an intercessor. The problem is that these intercessors have many times abused in the conscience of the one in the confessional and they use that confession for their own use and many times for their own abuse, up to the sexual point, “adds Sánchez Gaete.
An ingrained scourge that is difficult to eradicate
And although the Catholic Church has launched investigations in an attempt to redress its countless aggressions, the tragedy is far from over, as complaints are added throughout the world.
The Church believes that pedophilia is a spiritual problem that is solved by confessing and praying
In this special program we also spoke with Adrián Vitali, former priest and author of the book ‘The Pontifical Secret: The Law of Silence’, in which he exposes testimonies of victims and survivors of ecclesiastical abuse and analyzes the plot of silence and cover-up that surrounds the responsible for these crimes.
“For the Church, abusing a child is not serious because abusing a child happens in the body, and if that child does not forgive his abuser he is going to be condemned, why? because the body is not important, what is important is the soul. If the abuse of a child were serious for the Church, it would have to apply the maximum penalty of its Code of Canon Law, which is expulsion, and most abusive priests are not expelled, because the Church believes that pedophilia is a spiritual problem. that is solved by confessing and praying, which puts children at risk ”, says Vitali in an interview with France 24.
The former priest also maintains that “a pedophile in the Church is something very serious, because he has many powers and resources to abuse. Symbolically, in the community, the priest is someone similar to God, that is why no one doubts the priest, but they do doubt the victims when they denounce the priest. That is why it is necessary to take immediate and urgent measures, because harming a child is forever ”.
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