FRANCE
RFI
[Les chiffres de la honte: 32 agresseurs, 339 victimes – Mediapart]
Twenty-five French bishops covered up sexual abuse of by 32 Catholic priests for years, an investigative website claims. The abuse, which continued after 2000 when the church claimed to have tackled the problem, affected 339 victims, it says.
The Mediapartwebsite names all 25 bishops, five of whom were still in office in January, and accuses Lyon’s Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of having known about abuse by five priests without notifying police.
Several cases of covering up sexual abuse against Barbarin were dismissed last June.
Among the other bishops named by Mediapart are Besançon Archbishop Jean-Luc-Bouilleret, Bayonne Bishop Marc Aillet, Yves Le Saux of Le Mans and Mgr Bernard Fellay of the Society of Saint Pius X, a traditionalist fraternity that is going through a reconciliation process with the Vatican.
Of the 339 victims, 288 were minors, the site says.
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