Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, Archbisop of Reims. Head of the Conference of French Bishops.
Told there were 216,000 French victims of 3000 paedophile Catholic priest since 1950.
Told there were 216,000 French victims of 3000 paedophile Catholic priest since 1950.
A couple of days ago I reported on the leaked report of the French independent commission of enquiry into child abuse by Catholic priest in France since 1950. The reports spoke of 10,000 victims of 3000 priests and other Catholic clerics.
The 10,000 figure was wrong and grossly underestimated the true number. In the report delivered to the Archbishop of Reims, Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, in his position as head of the French Conference of Bishops, which commissioned the report, the true number of abuse victims was estimated to be about 216,000 and possibly as high as 330,000!
The final figure for the number of victims could rise to a third of a million if abuse by lay members are also included.
You are a disgrace to our humanity.
In this hell there have been abominable mass crimes ... but there has been even worse, betrayal of trust, betrayal of morale, betrayal of children.
In presenting the report, the head of the commission, Jean-Marc Sauve, said the church had shown "deep, total and even cruel indifference for years," protecting itself rather than the victims of what was systemic abuse.In this hell there have been abominable mass crimes ... but there has been even worse, betrayal of trust, betrayal of morale, betrayal of children.
Francois Devaux, a victim of church abuse
Founder of a victims' association, La Parole Liberee (The Liberated Word)
(Talking to church representative at the report's presentation.)
Founder of a victims' association, La Parole Liberee (The Liberated Word)
(Talking to church representative at the report's presentation.)
He said most of the victims were boys, many of them aged between 10 and 13. The church not only did not take the necessary measures to prevent abuse but also failed to report it and sometimes knowingly put children in touch with predators. He added that the problem is still there. The church had shown complete indifference to its victims and only really started to change its attitude in 2015-2016.
The commission was established by the Conference of French bishops in 2018, following public concern about predatory paedophiles and other sexual abusers within the Catholic priesthood and global reports of sexual abuse scandals and cover-ups in the Catholic Church. It has operated independently of the church.
What is becoming clear from these repeated scandals and the scale of the abuses is that there was a culture of sexual predation in the priesthood at all levels, and a culture of tolerance which acted to both keep it from the public and to facilitate it. In effect, the Catholic Church, for many years acted as an international paedophile ring, moving priests to new parishes when their abuses started to become local knowledge, but not seeing it as any reason to restrict or control their predation on children and vulnerable adults. The welfare of their victims was of no importance. What was important was to protect the church and to allow the abuses to continue unabated.
It was seen by many as a perk of the job and a compensation for a life of 'celibacy', which was interpreted as remaining unmarried, rather than avoiding sexual activity. What little selection there was for entry into the priesthood never tried to filter out those with sexually abusive tendencies and the highly sexual culture in seminaries simply recruited more into the circle.
As Stephen Fry said, sex and eating are both primary impulses. The Catholic Church has an unhealthy obsession with sex. Those with an unhealthy obsession with food are the anorexics and the grossly obese, and in erotic terms, that is the Catholic Church in a nut shell.
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