On Tuesday, a major investigation revealed the Catholic Church had turned a blind eye to the ‘scourge’ of French clergy who sexually abused more than 200,000 children over the past 70 years. Jean-Marc Sauve, head of the commission that compiled the report, stated, “The church had shown deep, total even cruel indifference for years. Most of the victims were boys, many of them aged between 10 and 13.”
He added, “Faced with this scourge, for a very long time the Catholic Church’s immediate reaction was to protect itself as an institution and it has shown complete, even cruel, indifference to those having suffered abuse.” The revelations, which showed the problem in France was more widespread than previously thought, were the latest to rock the Roman Catholic Church, after a series of sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children.
Pope Francis has expressed shame on behalf of himself and the Roman Catholic Church over the scale of sexual abuse committed against children in France after a damming report found hundreds of thousands of minors had been abused.
The 84-year-old Pope also shared his own regrets: “It is also my shame, our shame, my shame, for the incapacity of the Church for too long to put them at the center of its concerns,” and expressed his “sadness and pain for the trauma that they suffered.”
Pope Francis implored French bishops and high-up clergymen “to continue to make every effort so that similar tragedies will not be repeated.”
The head of the French conference of bishops, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, stated the church is shamed, calling the report a “bombshell”. He asked for forgiveness and promised to act.
