FRANCE
La Croix International
November 5, 2018
By Céline Hoyeau
Participants hope for a deep change in awareness and in the practice of the Church to prevent and deal with assaults and sexual crimes
French bishops collectively met with victims of clerical sexual abuse for the first time for a session of testimony and discussion that participants later described as of “rare quality.”
Véronique Garnier, who was abused by a priest for two years from the age of 13, says she survived for years in what she described as “deadly silence” because “no one wanted to listen to us.”
Now, she says that she was impressed by the “totally different kind of silence, a great silence” that reigned during her meeting with 30 French bishops gathered in a circle around her at the beginning of their Plenary Assembly in Lourdes on Saturday Nov. 3.
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