PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International [France]
October 4, 2021
By Céline Hoyeau and Christophe Henning (with AFP)
Jean-Marc Sauvé, chair of independent commission, says 3,000 priests and religious were guilty of sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons over the past 70 years
The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) will release its report on Tuesday after almost three years of an extremely thorough investigation.
But the first details were provided a few days ago by one member or another from the commission, beginning with the president Jean-Marc Sauvé.
He told the press that 3,000 priests and religious had committed abuse between 1950 and 2020.
The report will be publicly handed over tomorrow to the Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF) and the Conference of Religious of Institutes and Congregations (Corref).
These two entities commissioned the report in autumn 2018 at a press conference attended by representatives of victims’ groups.
A report with no complacency
Words like “earthquake” and “explosion” are being used to describe the report’s findings.
“It will be like a bomb,” says Olivier Savignac of “Parler et Revivre”, one of the victims’ groups.
“It will be unsparing,” assures sociologist Philippe Portier, a member of CIASE.
The French bishops sent priests and parishes a message to be read at Masses over this past weekend, warning them that the report “will be a test of truth and a harsh and serious moment”.
They said it should be received with “an attitude of truth and compassion”.
The so-called “Sauvé Report” is no less than 2,500 pages long. It includes appendices that contain personal testimonies and the results of socio-historical surveys.
Without a doubt, the diagnosis promises to be severe for a phenomenon that has been described as “massive”.
Beyond ascertaining the extent of the abuse, the commission also investigated the way the Church has dealt — or has not dealt — with the issue. And its final task was to make recommendations to Church leaders.
It was a colossal undertaking that Mr. Sauvé and his commission carried out unflinchingly.
Work in the archives
Almost nothing is known about the commission’s conclusions.
This multi-disciplinary study combined the results coming from testimonies as well as from historical research.
It also relied on a survey of the general population, which was conducted by two leading French polling organizations.
The target audience included 28,000 adults considered representative of France’s general population, proceeding with 250 long hearings and research interviews.
The commission also scoured numerous archives of the Church, the justice and interior ministries of the French Republic, and the media.
It now appears that the number of victims will be much higher that the 10,000 figure that Mr. Sauvé had estimated last spring.
In fact, from all sources combined – telephone calls, e-mails and letters – more than 6,400 people have already come forward to CIASE over the last 18 months.
Finally, the commission also measured the number of victims and compared the prevalence of sexual violence in the Church to that identified in other institutions, such as sports associations, schools and in the family circle.
3,000 priests and religious
As media speculation began to swirl the past several days, Mr. Sauvé confirmed that there have been between 2,900 and 3,200 pedocriminal priests or religious in the Church over the past 70 years.
He said two-thirds of these are diocesan priests, the rest from religious orders.
This amounts to about 3% of the 115,000 priests who ministered from 1950-2020, the period that CIASE studied.
Most cases of abuse took place between 1950 and 1970, a time when the fear of scandal and the concern to “save” the abusive priest prevailed.
The fate of the victims was hidden and they were asked to remain silent.
The Church began to take victims into account beginning in the 1990s, but cases were still largely handled internally.
It was not until the 2010s, with the increase in reports to the courts and canonical sanctions, that victims began to be recognized.
These are all elements that will push CIASE to make a pronouncement on the “systemic” nature of abuse in the Church.
Mr. Sauvé spoke last November of a “management of these cases which in the past has often been faulty”.
He also considered it “extremely serious that there may have been a few institutions and communities, in small numbers, where systemic abuses may have been committed”.
The recommendations
It is true that CEF and Corref have taken stronger measures in recent years to deal with the scourge of sexual violence in the Church.
But the commission is expected to announce a set of precise, concrete and more demanding recommendations at the end of its report.
The proposals will likely touch on several areas: listening to victims, prevention, training of priests and religious, the adequacy or not of canon law, transformation of the governance of the Church, etc.
There is no doubt that the recognition of victims and their compensation will be at the heart of the recommendations made by CIASE, which has also worked on the concept of “restorative justice”.
Once the Sauvé Report has been submitted, the Catholic Church will be left with the challenge of appropriating its teachings.
The bishops of France have already set up the “fund to help and to fight against the abuse of minors”.
They did this last spring without being sure that it will even correspond to CIASE’s demands.
CEF and Corref will hold their respective plenary assemblies at the beginning of November in Lourdes.
The meetings will be an occasion to start working on the reception of the report.