The president of the commission that issued the report, Jean-Marc Sauve, said the estimate, based on scientific research, includes abuses committed by priests and others clerics as well as by non-religious people involved in the church. He said about 80% are male victims.
The report says an estimated 3,000 child abusers -- two-thirds of them priests -- worked in the church during that period. Sauve said the overall figure of victims includes an estimated 216,000 people abused by priests and other clerics. Sauve denounced the church's attitude until the beginning of the 2000s as "a deep, cruel indifference toward victims." They were "not believed or not heard" and sometimes suspected of being "in part responsible" for what happened, he deplored.
The report comes after a scandal surrounding now-defrocked priest Bernard Preynat rocked the French Catholic Church. Last year, Preynat was convicted of sexually abusing minors and given a five-year prison sentence. He acknowledged abusing more than 75 boys for decades. The Preynat case led to the resignation last year of the former archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who has been accused of failing to report the abuses to civil authorities when he learned about them in the 2010s. France's highest court ruled earlier this year that Barbarin did not cover up the case.
Anyone who continues to walk through the doors of these churches condones the abuse.
I still think that when churches were burned in Canada it was the people that ran them trying to hide evidence 💩✝️
“330,000 victims of church sex abuse: French report”. The RomanCatholicChurch needs to wake up & stop hide Priests , Bishops behind the walls of the Vatican. I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg! Praying for the abusers is not going to make it go away justice will.
Seems like a very low number.
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