Probe: Catholic Church in France had 3,000 youngster abusers

An unbiased fee inspecting intercourse abuse throughout the Roman Catholic Church in France believes 3,000 youngster abusers, two-thirds of them clergymen, have labored within the church over the previous 70 years.
The estimate was given by the fee president, Jean-Marc Sauv, in an interview printed Sunday within the newspaper Journal du Dimanche. The fee has been investigating for two 1/2 years. Its full findings are scheduled to be launched on Tuesday.
In the interview, Sauv didn’t give a determine on the variety of intercourse abuse victims however mentioned the report does embody a brand new estimate.
Asked concerning the fee’s work investigating youngster abusers, he mentioned, “We evaluated their number at 3,000, out of 11,500 priests and church people since the 1950s. Two-thirds are diocesan priests.”
He mentioned 22 instances have been forwarded to prosecutors for alleged crimes that may nonetheless be pursued. More than 40 instances of alleged crimes which might be too previous to be prosecuted however that contain suspects who’re nonetheless alive have been forwarded to church officers, Sauv mentioned.
“From 1950 to 1970, the church is completely indifferent to the victims: They don’t exist, the suffering inflicted on children is ignored,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “The periods that followed were different.” He added, “Our objective is to furnish a concrete diagnosis of all the abuses, to identify the causes and draw all of the consequences.”