A 2,500-page report conducted by an independent inquiry into allegations of abuse and subsequent cover-ups within France\u2019s Catholic Church has declared that a \u201cveil of silence\u201d allowed clergy to assault victims for decades.<\/p>\n
Jean-Marc Sauve, the president of the commission that examined the allegations, found the French Catholic Church had shown \u201ca profound and even cruel indifference towards the victim\u201d<\/em> up until the 2000s, condemning the church\u2019s hierarchy and dysfunction for failing to stop it.<\/p>\n Over the past 70 years, the inquiry established roughly 216,000 children were the victims of abuse, with that number potentially growing to 330,000 when including lay members. Out of a total of 115,000 priests and clergy during that time, evidence showed 2,900 to 3,200 were accused of abuse.<\/p>\n Sauve blamed a \u201cveil of silence\u201d<\/em> within the French Catholic Church, ensuring that victims were \u201cnot believed, not heard,\u201d<\/em> and allowing \u201csystemic\u201d<\/em> abuse to proliferate for decades unchallenged.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is devastating, because the ratio between 216,000 and 3,000, it\u2019s one aggressor for 70 victims. That is terrifying for the French society, for the Catholic Church,\u201d<\/em> Olivier Savignac, head of victims\u2019 association \u2018Parler et Revivre\u2019, which means \u2018Speak Out and Live Again\u2019, said ahead of the report\u2019s release.<\/p>\n The commission had spent two and a half years examining evidence, speaking to victims and witnesses, and investigating archives from the church, courts, police, and press, dating back to the 1950s. A telephone line established to field calls from potential victims or those who knew someone who\u2019d been abused took around 6,500 calls.<\/p>\n The inquiry has handed 22 allegations of crimes to prosecutors for them to consider if charges can be brought against alleged abusers. More than 40 cases deemed criminal could not be prosecuted, as they are too old, even though the alleged assailants are still alive. Those cases will be provided to church officials to be handled within the clergy.<\/p>\n
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