In France, Catholic priests have allegedly abused around 216 000 children according to a commission, which analysed church-linked child abuse in the EU country since 1950, British public broadcaster BBC reports.
The inquiry in the largely Catholic country was commissioned by the French Catholic Church in 2018. An independent commission spent more than two-and-a-half years looking through court, police and church records and speaking to victims and witnesses.
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Jean-March Sauvé, a senior French civil servant, who chaired the commission evaluated on Tuesday, October 5, when presenting the results of the inquiry, that until the early 2000s, the Catholic Church had «showed a profound and even cruel indifference towards the victims».
The commission found evidence of a minimum of 2,900 to 3,200 abusers – out of a total of 115,000 priests and other clerics – and vast majority of victims having been pre-adolescent boys from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Convictions are not expected as most cases assessed by the panel could have their legal limitation exceeded under French law, BBC reports.
Catholic priests in France have abused 216 000 children, report alleges
