The revelations are shocking: About 216,000 children fell victims of abuse by Catholic clergy and monks since 1950, as a result of an investigation into sexual abuse within the French Catholic Church.
The finding was announced today by the head of the committee that conducted the investigation and drafted the relevant report, Jean-Marc Sowet.
“These figures are far more than alarming, they are shocking and can in no way go unanswered,” he said, adding that the committee he leads has alerted prosecutors to some of the cases it has dealt with.
These revelations in France are the latest to shock the Roman Catholic Church, following a series of scandals sexual abuse by a priest in the world, often involving children, for the past 20 years.
Most of the victims were boys – The Church showed “deep, absolute, even cold indifference”
The abuse was systemic, Sovey said during a public, online presentation of the report, adding that the Church had shown “deep, absolute, and even cold indifference for years”, protecting itself rather than the victims.
Most of the victims were boys, he noted, many of them between the ages of 10 and 13.
The Church not only did not take the necessary measures to prevent the abuse, but closed its eyes, failing to report the abuse and sometimes knowingly brought the children in contact with the perpetrators. News agency.
This committee was created by its bishops Of the Catholic Church at the end of 2018 to shed light on the abuses and to restore the people’s trust in the Church at a time when the number of churchgoers is decreasing. She worked independently of the Church.
Sove noted that the problem still exists and added that the Church showed complete indifference to the victims until the 2000s and that it really only began to change its attitude in 2015-2016.
The commission itself identified some 2,700 victims through calls for testimony and thousands more were found in records, Sove said.
It is estimated that there were approximately 216,000 victims
However, large-scale research by research and polling teams estimates that there were about 216,000 victims, while this number could increase further, to 330,000, if the victims of popular abuse are included.
The death toll rises to “330,000 if we add the perpetrators who worked in Catholic Church institutions,” Sove added.
The figures he cited come from a statistical estimate of a margin of error of 50,000 people, the committee chairman said, noting that there have been around 2,900-3,200 suspected pedophiles in the French Church over the past 70 years.
“You are a disgrace to our humanity”
“You are a disgrace to our humanity,” François Devo, who founded the La Parole Liberee Victims’ Association, told church officials at the public presentation of the exhibition before Sowe spoke.
“In this hell there have been heinous mass crimes (…) but there are worse, betrayal of trust, betrayal of morals, betrayal of children,” added Devo, who also accuses the Church of cowardice.
He thanked the committee, saying it hoped the report would be a turning point: “Finally offer the victims an institutional recognition of the Church’s responsibility.”
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