French catholic church inquiry finds 216,000 abuse cases between 1950-2020

Cluedo Monopoly

An investigation into sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church has found that an estimated 216,000 children were victims of abuse by clergy since 1950, said Jean-March Sauve, head of the commission that compiled the report.

The revelations in France are the latest to rock the Catholic Church, after a series of sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children, over the past 20 years.

The abuse was systemic, Mr Sauve said at a public, online presentation of the report, adding that the church had shown "deep, total and even cruel indifference for years," protecting itself rather than the victims.

216,000 cases of clerical abuse in France since 1950 (rte.ie)

What I don't understand is why the Roman Catholic organisation is not investigating itself? It has known for decades that it was a haven for pedophiles and child abuse. The relevant state bodies always seem to be the ones uncovering the truth. Surely the church themselves need to instigate investigations across the world and report on their crimes against children. Where is the internal agitation among the clergy to open their records and come clean? They seem happy just to wait for the truth to come out and then they issue an apology.

FunLover18

The church is rotten to the core and they can get away with issuing an apology fifty years after the fact.

Exiled1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058211788/french-catholic-church-inquiry-finds-216-000-abuse-cases-between-1950-2020

Same as here. The arrogance and cover-ups were identical in every country...... did that come from Rome via the seminaries it controlled like Maynooth and the many in France?? The Church authorities spent their time interfering in the most private parts of decent people's lives and routinely bullying them at every turn. Within the Church itself the culture was 'see no evil..' and definitely keep schtum. This applied in every aspect of their doings. In schools they praised clerical colleagues as 'wonderful teachers', while knowing some of these characters were born savages who got results via the end of a cane. If a lay person was slightly critical of a clerics actions, then that layman (women were ignored anyway) was quietly sidelined. Happened lots of competent and concerned teachers in Ireland and worldwide.

Effects

Why would it investigate itself, when it would just expose how much they promoted and allowed it to happen?

Just cover up, apologise, move on, keep the money rolling in.

Billgirlylegs

OP

You said it yourself.

"The abuse was systemic, Mr Sauve said at a public, online presentation of the report, adding that the church had shown "deep, total and even cruel indifference for years," protecting itself rather than the victims"

There was a thread here yesterday about the Tuam scandal, kicked off by apologists.

Never admit, never apologise

Thelonious Monk

And still we have these pedo freaks in our schools and hospitals and the **** Angelus on our national broadcaster. The population of this country seem to have Stockholm syndrome too with the christenings and communions.

WrenBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117983291#Comment_117983291

The people in the church have absolutely 100% failed in their charge and should all be held responsible but that doesn't mean people want to abandon the religion itself.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117983348#Comment_117983348

So be a Christian without being a Catholic

Effects

People need to be part of a group. It’s not enough to just be a Christian.

NIMAN

I heard a figure of 330,000 mentioned too.

Shocking to think of those 330,000 innocent children who had their lives ruined by sick perverts,the vast majority of who incurred no justice.

Effects

The larger figure is when you include abuse not carried out by priests only.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117984783#Comment_117984783

Correct.

Members of the Catholic clergy in France sexually abused an estimated 216,000 minors over the past seven decades, according to a damning report published Tuesday that said the Church had prioritized the protection of the institution over victims who were urged to stay silent.

The number of abused minors rises to an estimated 330,000 when including victims of people who were not clergy but had other links to the Church, such as Catholic schools and youth programs.

France Catholic church abuse scandal: 216,000 minors sexually abused, report finds - CNN

"The Catholic Church is the place where the prevalence of sexual violence is at its highest, other than in family and friend circles," said the report, which found that children were also more likely to abused within Church settings than in state-run schools or summer camps.

"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."

Hotblack Desiato

What's really depressing about this story is that nobody can be the least bit surprised - and it's inevitable that the same happened everywhere else around the world the RCC had a significant presence.

Worse probably - the real screwballs from countries like Ireland got sent to "the missions" with little oversight over what they got up to.

Yet we still allow this unreformed, unreformable and corrupt to the core organisation to control 90% of the primary schools we, as taxpayers, pay for.

Those who have a choice are turning their backs on the church - there are now more non-religious marriages each year in Ireland than RCC, and baptism rates are falling now it's no longer a threat to getting your child a school place - but still, most parents have little or no choice but to send their child to an RCC controlled school. Many parents are then fearful of opting their child out of religion in case they are victimised. Enough of this nonsense. Get them out of OUR schools.

Alfred123

Defrock the lot of them !

And a few lashes of the leather

On the bare buttocks ..

put proper manners on em

I'm not apologist for the god awful carry on by RCC over centuries

.. but its forgotten in the dash to hate that a majority (surely) of RCC were honest to god solid folk who devoted their lives to educating / nursing etc others.

Its not like a Rosemary's baby scenario where every last priest, nun, Bishop was in on it ..that simply wasn't so

I just think this fact is often forgotten

Cluedo Monopoly

It's amazing that this was the 1st investigation into clerical child abuse in France. What took them so long?

tinytobe

What would interest me is, why there is so much child abuse in the catholic church? Is it really the reason, that catholic priests can't get married? Or is the catholic church as an organization part of the problem either encouraging or covering up this to happen? France is certainly not the first country, Ireland, Canada, it's seemingly everywhere..... Why? The Buddists don't seem to have that problem? Or the Jews? Or the Muslims?

Alfred123

Twice Silenced: The Underreporting of Child Sexual Abuse in Orthodox Jewish Communities

David Katzenstein and Lisa Aronson Silver School of Social Work, New York University, New York, New York, USA; University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts, USA

ABSTRACT

Child sexual abuse remains an underreported crime throughout the world, despite extensive research and resources dedicated both to improving investigative techniques and helping children disclose their experiences.

The discovery of rampant cover-ups within the Catholic Church has exposed some of the ways religious and cultural issues can impede reporting to authorities. This article examines specific factors that contribute to the underreporting of child sexual abuse within Orthodox Jewish communities. It also explores ways in which these communities have handled child sexual abuse reporting in the past and describes recent progress.

Implications are offered for CSA prevention, detection, and recovery in Orthodox Jewish communities as well as other minority religious groups.

ARTICLE HISTORY

Received 28 March 2017

Child sexual abuse; cultural

factors; Jews; religion;

underreporting

Child sexual abuse (CSA) exists to some extent in most communities (Finkelhor,2009; Pereda, Guilera, Forns, & Gómez-Benito, 2009) and is acknowledged as a vast worldwide public health problem with wide-ranging negative effects for victims, their families, and society as a whole (Putnam, 2003).

Recent research explores variations in the ways CSA appears and is handled in culturally and religiously distinct communities (e.g., Graham, Lanier, Johnson-Motoyama, 2016;Tishelman & Fontes, 2017).

Although research is limited, CSA appears to be as prevalent in Orthodox Jewish communities as elsewhere (Yehuda, Friedman, Rosenbaum, Labinsky, & Schmeidler, 2007), despite strict and clear guidelines about sexually (in)appropriate relationships. Some rabbis have called CSA a “matter of life and death” because of its far-reaching harm (Horowitz, 2012; Schere, 2016)."

Here in Ireland, We have already imported Religions with a proven track record of having scant regard for human rights. They are certainly not the kind to report CSA openly. It is something that would be dealt with internally. It would certainly never makes it to the media.

Also, what might be considered CSA in a Western society may be perfectly acceptable in another belief system : "underage", forced marriages, female genital mutilation

While abuse of minors is unacceptable in any shape of form, it is wrong to make the Catholic church the sole whipping boy.

CSA is not confined to the RCC

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058211788/french-catholic-church-inquiry-finds-216-000-abuse-cases-between-1950-2020

Did you not read the news story that you link to? The report disclosing 216,000 cases of clerical abuse was commissioned by the Catholic church.

uptherebels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991356#Comment_117991356

Nobody said it was confined to the RCC.

I was wondering how long it would take for the deflectors to turn up

Alfred123

How is it "deflection"?

I was simply replying to TINYTOBE's observation above that CSA seems to be confined to the RCC

Follow the thread and you'll be fine

Brucie Bonus

The organisation, the catholic church, should be banned. If this was the rotary club or green peace they'd be shut down and members would be on criminal trial.

Animals roaming free and their partners in crime, politicians, afraid of losing votes.

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991391#Comment_117991391

Do you think they acted because they got a call from a victim a few months ago?

The one thing that may be different in France is there is a full separation of church and state and one that’s taken very seriously. I could see there being a far more legalistic approach to this. They’re more likely to go after it through criminal law.

Ireland’s is great at the hand wringing tribunals of enquiry and producing complex reports that ultimately have no consequences.

How France pursues this will be a big test of "la laïcité"

uptherebels

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991432#Comment_117991432

Where did he say it was confined to the RCC?

The question was why there is so much of it in the RCC and are the church's actions in covering it up, moving priests around contribution to the massive number of victims everywhere they are.

Your source is referencing religious communities as a whole, yet you want to compare it to the actions of the church instead of the wider Catholic community, why is that?

Like I said it wasn't long for the deflectors to turn up.

But hey, try and actually read the posts and you'll be fine.

seenitall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992461#Comment_117992461

To be fair, he did say/query that the Buddists/Jews/Muslims don’t seem to have that problem? They obviously do, power corrupts everywhere and anywhere, and many such things get either covered up far and wide, or even expressly condoned, with just as much vigour as the cover ups in the RCC (of which I’m no fan, either). I mean the mere fact that CSA in some cultures would go under the general heading of “marriage”; what is more “institutionally condoned CSA” than that?

Alfred123

Thank you, Seen it all, for restoring a sense of balance and perspective

Some posters here catch their knickers on fire and want to burn down every church in sight and all of those inside them.

They don't want to be 'deflected' from their mission neither

There are 2.3 billion Christians in the world. They are not all trying to abuse children and stick crucifixes up each others' orifices.

Shame on those who abused their power but let us lose the lynch mob mentality.

This is not the fecking Daily Mail

PopePalpatine

Alzheimer's is too good for the paedos and their enablers and collaborators.

Hotblack Desiato

Anybody still putting money on the RCC's collection plates is enabling the cover up of child abuse.

I was baptised, but defected formally back when it was still possible. I am most definitely an atheist - I have never believed in any of that stuff, but the church itself is a cultural and social organisation.

I felt it needed formal feedback that it wasn't just some fizzling out of faith or theological argument about atheism, but that I want nothing whatsoever to do with an organisation that's done what it has done, nor one that takes stances on women's rights and LGBTQ+ rights that are way out of whack with my own beliefs and sense of what human rights are about. So I laid out why I was leaving.

France does not have the complications Ireland has. There's a well established public school system that's entirely secular and so on and I would sincerely hope that it has the ability to hold them equally accountable before the law, rather than just do what we did - endlessly bow to a very powerful organisation (or group of organisations).

The thing about these revelations is that the real number is always higher, because some people won't admit what happened to them, died before proper investigations were carried out etc.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117993765#Comment_117993765

The big factor though is the very top of echelons of the church were responsible for a global cover-up. This includes the likes of John Paul II, it's basically the church being rotten at its moral core. While I get that people may choose to remain a member but it also requires a large amount of overlooking by members to the scale of what happened globally.

Hotblack Desiato

Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict) was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for over 20 years, which received the reports of abuse from all over the world, so he knew first-hand what was going on but it didn't seem to prompt much in the way of reform either when he was in effect JPII's right-hand-man, or when he was pope himself.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117992436#Comment_117992436

The issue is not why they did it, but whether they did it. The OP complains that . . .

"What I don't understand is why the Roman Catholic organisation is not investigating itself? It has known for decades that it was a haven for pedophiles and child abuse. The relevant state bodies always seem to be the ones uncovering the truth. Surely the church themselves need to instigate investigations across the world and report on their crimes against children."

. . . while linking to a newspaper report about a major investigation instigated, not by the "relevant state bodies", but by the church.

Brucie Bonus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118002898#Comment_118002898

Way too little way too late. They also continue to block living survivors and the families of the dead from mother and baby homes.

They should be outlawed as an organisation.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117991391#Comment_117991391

France is a truly secular state. While paid for by the church, it was a completely independent inquiry. They spent more than 2 years analysing police/court and church records and speaking to victims.

My question is why the church themselves didn't investigate themselves over 70 years and hand over their own internal data, reports, action plans? They knew every other developed country with a significant Roman catholic presence had a child abuse problem. We've had numerous clerical child abuse investigations over the last 20 years.

The commission said the Church had not only failed to prevent abuse but had also failed to report it, at times knowingly putting children in contact with predators.

He said that until the early 2000s, the Church had shown "deep, total and even cruel indifference" towards victims.

He added that sexual abuse within the Catholic Church continued to be a problem.

While the commission found evidence of as many as 3,200 abusers - out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics - it said this was probably an underestimation.

Peregrinus

Well, if your question is "why do wrongdoers not investigate and denounce themselves?" I think the answer is obvious, really. As long as the church tries to manage child abuse by covering it up and relocating perpetrators, it is not going to accuse itself publicly of covering up child abuse and protecting perpetrators.

If the question is whether the church has repented of this behaviour and is now committed to a different course, and your test for that is whether the church is investigating itself, making its records available, etc., then the new report that you link to suggests that, yes, the French church, at any rate, is doing that.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007269#Comment_118007269

I wouldn't say that it's proof of reforming. If it were, they'd be actively pushing for similar investigations in any countries they've got substantial activity in. Instead we get a drip feed of a different country each year. And invariably crap compensation for the victims.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118012271#Comment_118012271

Just to be clear: I'm not putting it forward as proof of reforming or, rather, a test for reforming; it's the OP that puts it forward. My point is more that, having puts it forward, he denies that it is happening but the evidence that he appeals to is, in fact, an example of it happening.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118012325#Comment_118012325

I don't think the French church paying for an independent inquiry in 2018 is much proof of reform. It was set up in response to a number of child abuse cases reported in France at the time. They have known for decades that there was a problem and there is no evidence that the French catholic church handed the commission their own investigation report. The French commission said that the Church had not only failed to prevent abuse but had also failed to report it. The burden of the report is that ad-hoc expressions of repentance and a bit of tinkering with ecclesiastical structures are no longer good enough. Most cases are now too old to prosecute under French law.

The pope said he only heard about the report in recent weeks.