FRANCE
The Tablet
30 January 2017 | by Tom Heneghan
Catholic bishops produce figures as part of new guide designed to combat child sexual abuse in the church
Nine clerics in prison and 26 under investigation on abuse charges, according to Church in France
The French bishops conference has said that nine priests and deacons are currently in prison for sexually abusing minors and 26 more clergy are being investigated by judicial authorities in such cases. A further 37 have served their sentences and been released.
The results of a recent survey of French dioceses with their 15,000 priests were released as the bishops presented an updated edition of “Combatting Paedophilia,” their 72-page guidebook for dealing with sexual abuse.
The survey and the guidebook reflected the bishops’ efforts in recent years to reorient their approach in the abuse issue to better reflect the suffering of victims. The failure to do so in the past led to the current abuse scandal in Lyon, where Cardinal Philippe Barbarin has had to admit he was slow to react in the case of a priest now awaiting both civil and canonical trials for his repeated abuse in the 1980s.
The survey noted the current 26 civil investigations were half the total reported in 2010. Since that time, 137 claims of clerical sexual abuse of minors have been made to judicial officials.
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