Heaven may be far away, but the devil is right there. The Catholic Church in France has come under pressure after Revelations of sexual abuse of minors, with bishops and other senior clergy making public confessions, attending memorial events for victims and announcing the sale of a large number of church properties to compensate victims of the abuse, AFP reported Thursday.
Released last month, according to a 2500 - page report, from the 1950 s to the 2020 French Catholic clergy had as many as 216000 a wide-ranging sexual abuse of minors, if added to lay on the charges (such as a Catholic school teachers), the number of victims is up to 330000. The survey also found that between 2,900 and 3,200 clergy and others in the Catholic Church in France were pedophiles, and this was "only the most conservative estimate". On Friday, the Catholic Church in France formally acknowledged for the first time "institutional responsibility" for sexual abuse. In an exhibition of photographs entitled "Crying Children", 120 archbishops, bishops and clergy attended and knelt in repentance to victims of sexual abuse. But in the eyes of victims' associations, the French Catholic Church's apology and repentance are not enough. They are demanding compensation, which could run into tens of millions of euros.
The Catholic Church in France said Monday it would set up an independent commission to pay compensation for cases that ran out of statute of limitations decades ago. The church has promised to set up a fund, which it plans to pay out starting next year, to take responsibility for crimes committed by clergy by selling diocesan-owned property and other assets. If needed, the French Catholic Church will take out a bank loan to pay for the damage and ask the Vatican to send observers to review it.
Under a fundamental 1905 law, French Catholic dioceses are not allowed to receive subsidies from the state. Their main sources of income are rent, donations from the faithful and inheritance. The Catholic Church in France has more than 3,000 churches built after 1905, as well as nearly 50,000 other buildings, with assets worth 700 million euros at its disposal each year, radio France Internationale reported in 2011.
In 2016, a Catholic priest in Lyon, France, sparked a public outcry after he was revealed to have sexually abused dozens of minors over a 30-year period. Under heavy public pressure, the Catholic Church in France began investigating the prevalence of paedophilia in the church, setting up an independent commission in 2018. Famous French director Francois Orjong's film "Thank God" is based on these true events and shows how many victims still struggle to recover from childhood sexual abuse even as adults.