First modification:
At the annual meeting of the French Episcopal Conference, the bishops accepted this Friday, November 5, the “institutional responsibility” of the Church in cases of pedophilia by members of the religious institution. The announcement follows the publication in October of the so-called Sauvé report, which revealed that nearly 216,000 people have been victims of violence or sexual assault as minors by religious parties since 1950.
A fact that continues to surprise by the chilling revelations and the silence that the Catholic Church has maintained for decades.
The content of the Sauvé report, published in October after two years of investigation, puts the Catholic Church in the eye of the hurricane again for having kept silent in a series of thousands of abuses and sexual assaults committed by religious in recent years. seventy years.
This Friday, November 5, the French bishops gathered in the city of Lourdes, in the south of France, decided “to recognize the institutional responsibility of the Church” in the sexual assaults suffered by thousands of victims and the “systemic dimension” of these crimes.
According to the report, since 1950, some 216,000 people have been victims of violence or sexual assault as minors by clergy, priests, deacons or religious. In addition, if the people attacked by lay people who work in Church institutions are added (among teachers, supervisors, executives of youth movements, etc.), the number of victims rises to 330,000.
When the Church turns a blind eye to pedophilia
The president of the French Bishops’ Conference, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, acknowledged on Friday that the Church was guilty of allowing the abuses to become “systemic.”
A month ago, an independent commission examined the attacks that occurred between 1950 and 2020 by members of the French Catholic Church and described it as a “massive phenomenon” that had been covered for decades by a “veil of silence.”
The Sauvé report – named after Jean-March Sauvé, head of the commission that compiled the report – assures that the “vast majority” of the victims were pre-adolescent children of various social origins.
Le secret de la confession doit rester, assure Mgr Éric de Moulins-Beaufort. “Beaucoup d’enfants ne parlent que parce qu’ils savent que c’est secret. Il faut nous former pour apprendre, from cette parole, à rendre possible une autre parole.” pic.twitter.com/gwJeYgqfeu
– franceinfo (@franceinfo) October 6, 2021
The nearly 2,500-page report also asserts that, until the 2000s, the Church was indifferent towards the victims and that it only began to really change its attitude in 2015-2016.
“The Catholic Church is, after the circle of family and friends, the environment with the highest prevalence of sexual violence,” the document states.
“You are a disgrace to our humanity,” François Devaux, director of the La Parole Libérée victims association, told Church representatives when the report was made public. He added that the worst crime has been “treason against trust, betrayal of morals and betrayal of children ”.
With AFP and local media
.