The Church has a debt to pay
Child sexual abuse in france
The discovery of the extent of the sexual abuse of children in the
Catholic Church has resounded through France like a clap of thunder
conveying the wrath of God. It is little mitigation of the shock to know
that the inquiry, whose report was published on Tuesday, had been
commissioned by the Catholic bishops of France themselves, and had not
been forced on them. It is also no comfort to learn that it appears that
the majority of cases happened several decades ago. This report is a
calamity of the first order for a French Church already reeling from
high-profile cases of abuse and cover up.
The numbers of victims
and survivors are disturbing and shaming, but are consistent with
findings elsewhere in the world. The report suggests that during the
darkest period, the number of Catholic clergy involved in sexual abuse
was something under 5 per cent of the total. That is still a horrifying
figure, and prompts several questions that urgently need further
investigation. Why, in a body as diverse as the Catholic Church, do we
see similar patterns of clerical abuse across the globe? What was going
on among the parish clergy and in Religious orders, from the United
States to France, from Ireland to Poland, and Chile to Germany, that
appears to have triggered a surge in such cases from the 1950s and 1960s
onwards?
Why do the incidences of abuse appear to decline so sharply around the turn of the century? Why were abusive priests not identified and weeded out?
That last question points to the responsibility of those in power, and the culture and attitudes they worked with. Were sexual crimes minimised and too readily forgiven in confession? Could bishops just not bear to face the truth? Was the body of clergy like an elite boy’s club, where everyone watched everyone else’s back? And though measures to prevent sexual abuse have become considerably tighter, how much of that autocratic style of episcopal leadership, a culture of palaces and limousines, unanswerable to those subject to it, remains in place?
Some are resisting Pope Francis’ call for more synodality in church structures; others think like Tomáš Halík in last week’s Tablet, that clerical abuse is a symptom of a disease of the whole system, which can only be saved by profound reform. This is not unlike the climate just prior to the start of the Second Vatican Council, when conservative-minded figures dismissed it as unnecessary and pointless. It wasn’t the Church that needed changing, but the world outside it.
The Church in France now has a chance to say what side it takes. Will it accept this crisis as a moment to rid itself of the disease of clericalism, of the abuse of power and authority? It owes this above all as a debt to be paid to those who were abused, who deserve to know not only that their suffering has at last been acknowledged, and that those responsible have expressed remorse, but that realistic remedies and radical reforms are finally being put in place. The alternative is that they will see this report as no more than words, and that the grievous sin against them will remain unatoned.
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