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>3000 pedophiles' held positions in French Catholic Church since 1950s
French report: 330,000 children victims of church sex abuse
PARIS (AP) — Victims of abuse within France’s Catholic Church welcomed a historic turning point Tuesday after a new report estimated that 330,000 children in France were sexually abused over the past 70 years, providing the country’s first accounting of the worldwide phenomenon.
The figure includes abuses committed by some 3,000 priests and an unknown number of other people involved in the church — wrongdoing that Catholic authorities covered up over decades in a “systemic manner,” according to the president of the commission that issued the report, Jean-Marc Sauvé.
The 2,500-page document was issued as the Catholic Church in France, like in other countries, seeks to face up to shameful secrets that were long covered up. Victims welcomed the report as long overdue and the head of the French bishops’ conference asked for their forgiveness.
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https://apnews.com/article/europe-france-child-abuse-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-religion-ab5da1ff10f905b1c338a6f3427a1c66
3,000 paedophiles in French Catholic church since 1950s - inquiry head
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Figure from head of commission investigating sexual abuse comes days before publication of report
The head of an independent commission investigating child sexual abuse in the French Catholic church has said about 3,000 paedophiles have operated inside the institution since 1950.
Days before publication of its report, Jean-Marc Sauvé said the commission’s investigations had uncovered between 2,900 and 3,200 paedophile priests or other church members, adding that this was “a minimum estimate”.
Sauvé told Agence-France Presse that the 2,500-page report, based on church, court and police archives as well as interviews with witnesses and due to be published on Tuesday, had tried to quantify both the number of offenders and of victims.
It also looked into “the mechanisms, notably institutional and cultural ones” within the church which allowed paedophiles to remain, and will offer 45 proposals, he said.
The commission, made up of 22 legal professionals, doctors, historians, sociologists and theologians, was set up in 2018 after Pope Francis passed a landmark measure obliging people who know about abuse in the church to report it to their superiors.
A hotline set up in June 2019 for French victims and witnesses received 6,500 calls in its first 17 months of operation but prompted many survivors to question whether French prosecutors would be willing and able to press charges.
Philippe Portier, a sociologist on the commission, promised the report would “not go easy on anyone”, while Olivier Savignac, of the victims’ association Parler et Revivre, (Speak and Relive), said it would “have the effect of a bomb”.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/03/since-1950-some-3000-paedophiles-operated-in-french-catholic-church