Two European Sex Abuse Reports Underscore the Depth and Horror of the Problem

If things are bad for the Catholic Church in the United States (think California, New York, and New Jersey), it’s not as bad as Poland and France. Both countries have witnessed the publication of comprehensive abuse reports that have quantified child sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church since 1950.

In Poland, where 90% of the population consider themselves Catholic, 382 abuse complaints have been filed in the past 28 years. That number is tiny compared to what has been reported in France – 200,000 have been molested by Catholic priests over the past seven decades. That’s an astonishing number that was part of a 2,500-page report published by the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church. The report detailed how the church hierarchy had repeatedly silenced the victims and failed to report or discipline the clergy concerned.

“The Church has neither seen nor heard, failed to notice the weak signals, failed to take the necessary rigorous measures,” said Commission President Jean-Marc Sauvé on Tuesday at a press conference in Paris. For years the church has shown “deep, total and even cruel indifference to the victims,” ​​he added.

After a series of high-profile scandals, sexual abuse in the church is increasingly expected in France. The commission of inquiry was set up in 2018 at the request of the Catholic Church in France in response to criticism of its handling of cases of abuse.

The report contains certain specific recommendations, such as considering that the ordination of married men and compensation for victims of abuse are determined on a case-by-case basis.

Although the Catholic Church in France may have requested the investigation, it is doubtful that it understood the depth and gravity of the problem. According to the NY Times, “The commission estimates that since 1950, around 216,000 minors, mostly boys aged 10 to 13, have been molested by clergymen in France. The number reached 330,000 after adding in perpetrators who were lay people who worked for or were close to the Church, such as scout organizers or Catholic school staff. The estimate is a projection based on a general population survey, archive analysis, and other sources. The commission also estimated that there had been at least 2,900 clergy sex abusers over the past 70 years – likely an underestimation, said Mr Sauvé. “

It is difficult to say how the church will recover from such a revelation or expect to regain the trust of a population that is already secularized and not influenced by the church as other generations of French have been. The French Revolution was a paradigm shift for the Catholic Church, but even that is not as dangerous as the information in the report. Most institutions do not recover from such news and only time will tell if the Catholic Church in France can muster the resources to face up to its own past and recover.

The list of priests accused of abuse in California