Pope pained by French scandal
VATICAN: Pope Francis on Wednesday expressed personal shame at the sexual abuse of children by French Catholic clergy, after the scale of the problem was laid bare in a devastating report.
An independent commission on Tuesday revealed that French Catholic clergy had sexually abused about 216,000 youngsters since 1950 and covered it up with a “veil of silence”.
The Catholic Church continues to face huge numbers of abuse claims and prosecutions across the world, and the issue has been one of the biggest challenges for Pope Francis since his election in 2013.
“I wish to express to the victims my sadness and pain for the trauma they have suffered,” the pope said during his weekly audience at the Vatican. “And also my shame, our shame, my shame for the inability of the Church for too long to put them at the centre of its concerns.”
Pope Francis has declared an end to impunity and changed Vatican law to make reporting abuse mandatory, but victims have warned it is not enough.
On Wednesday, the Argentine urged the clergy to keep working to ensure such situations were not repeated, offering support to French priests to face up to “this trial that is hard but healthy”.
The pontiff, who prayed with four French bishops before the audience, invited French Catholics to “assume their responsibilities to ensure that the Church is a safe home for all”.
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron praised the Church for facing up to the issue.
“I hope that this work can continue in a clear-sighted and calm manner,” he told reporters at an EU meeting in Slovenia on Wednesday. “There is a need for truth and reparation,” he said.
Following years of work, the 2,500page report on Tuesday found that the “vast majority” of victims were pre-adolescent boys and their abusers were mainly priests, bishops, deacons and monks.
When claims against lay members of the Church such as teachers are included, the number of victims climbs to 330,000 since 1950, the report found.
“Until the early 2000s, the Catholic Church showed a profound and even cruel indifference towards the victims,” commission chief Jean-Marc Sauve told a press conference on Tuesday.
Archbishop Eric de Moulins Beaufort, president of the Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF), which co-requested the report, expressed his “shame and horror” at the findings. “My wish today is to ask forgiveness from each of you,” he told the news conference.
His message was echoed on Wednesday by Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, head of the pope’s commission for the protection of minors, who offered “our profound sorrow and humbly ask forgiveness”.
“There remains a long road ahead of us in confronting abuse in our Church and in society at large,” he said.
The pope has vowed repeatedly to tackle the problem across the worldwide Catholic Church. In February 2019, he gathered senior clergy for a global summit that heard devastating testimony from victims.