PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International [Montrouge Cedex, France]
April 1, 2025
The French Bishops’ Conference is holding a special session March 31–April 1 to assess anti-abuse efforts. Although many measures have been taken since the CIASE report in 2021, blind spots and unresolved questions remain for many victims.
Communities on the margins of official bodies
What can be done when the community where one experienced abuse does not adhere to the mechanisms of reparation set up by the Church? This is the case for Myriam Remy, a former member of the Community of the Beatitudes. The community refused to join the Commission for Recognition and Reparation (CRR), created in 2021 for victims in the religious world.
Not being a religious institute but an “ecclesial family of consecrated life,” the Community of the Beatitudes is not automatically under the CRR. However, the community could have joined, as it has often been asked to do and as other communities have done. Instead, its choice went to its own structure, the Independent Reception and Mediation Mechanism (DIAM), operational since January 2024 and whose stated purpose was justified by the ambition to “recognize and support spiritual abuse as well.” An internal source, who would have preferred her community to join the CRR, believes it may have been “afraid of a snowball effect” and was “poorly advised.”
“From the start, we knew it would be difficult because it meant trusting the Beatitudes again from the outset,” explained Remy, cofounder of a victims’ collective. “But I told myself that if we don’t go, people will reproach us for it.” One year later, she denounced a process that is “opaque” (“we don’t know their funding,” “they speak to me poorly,” “it’s always us who have to follow up”…) which has left her in “distress.” According to her, “it’s a clever way to display goodwill while discouraging victims or silencing them with a confidentiality clause.”
This point constitutes a clear difference between the two official bodies of the Church in France (the other being the INIRR — National Independent Authority for Recognition and Reparation). From the first phone conversation, Myriam’s interlocutors insisted heavily on confidentiality—hers included. Victims then must commit to “not disclosing the process” to the media or for any procedure.
“At the CRR, they don’t make you sign that kind of thing because they know it harms the victims,” Remy said indignantly. For the coordinator of the DIAM, Clotilde Beylouneh, it is nonetheless a standard aspect of any mediation, intended to “foster freedom of exchange,” as confirmed by a lawyer specializing in such cases, who sees it as “a fundamental principle of mediation.” On the CRR side, “we require nothing from the victims—not confidentiality, nor any commitment whatsoever,” explained Anne de Richecour, general delegate. And this is so as not to “gag them again at the very moment when they are finally able to speak!”
The difficult characterization of spiritual abuse
“As long as it’s not sexual, the church doesn’t address it—you get the impression it doesn’t know what to do.” That is the bitter observation made by Philippe (his name has been changed) after reporting “repeated acts of spiritual abuse” by the parish priest against his adult daughter. Over several months, he gathered testimonies from about 50 people and submitted them to the diocese and the community from which the priest came. “But they’re not equipped!” he lamented.
Isabelle Chartier Siben, who has been accompanying victims for more than 30 years within the association C’est à dire, confirms the church’s difficulty in addressing phenomena of control and manipulation. “Spiritual abuse, or abuse of conscience, is extremely difficult to characterize, especially if the victim is an adult,” explained this victims’ rights legal expert. “In criminal law, one can rely on abuse of weakness and moral harassment. It’s the accumulation of cases that allows abuse to be identified.”
In Philippe’s case, a canonical visitation was conducted, clearing the priest, which had the effect of reinforcing him at the expense of his alleged victims. “The problem,” Siben added, “is that the visitors are not sufficiently trained and let themselves be manipulated.” For Véronique Margron, president of Conference of Men and Women Religious of France, the issue of control over adults remains a “blind spot” in the church and a top priority.
The absence of an investigation in the case of a deceased priest
Her memories resurfaced years later. “It was in September 2023,” confided Maylis You. “The face of this priest came back to my mind, even though I hadn’t seen him since childhood.” That day, everything came back: the preparation for First Communion, games in the courtyard of Saint-Similien parish in Nantes, Father C. “who called me into his office, the change in attitude, the curtains closing, the brutality.” She was 7 then, in 1997.
The woman filed a complaint for rape. Three months later, she met with Bishop Laurent Percerou of Nantes, who had served as bishop of the diocese since 2020. He encouraged her to contact the INIRR and told her he would contact the prosecutor. While the young woman heard nothing for several months, Father C. died in February 2025. She found out through the public announcement of his funeral. You was outraged: “They told me it would be discreet, but it wasn’t at all—there were several eulogies, scouts in uniform.” She turned again to the bishop and discovered that her complaint had been dismissed seven months earlier due to lack of evidence.
Bishop Percerou said he had ensured the celebration would be discreet but admitted this was a “difficult” situation. “I couldn’t publicly raise accusations against a man who hadn’t been convicted by justice,” he explained. “Nor prevent people from attending a church service which, being full, could indeed give an impression of grandeur,” conceded the bishop of Nantes.
You shared her testimony of the abuse she endured with people in the diocese who had known this priest. “They confirmed he had a reputation: he used to go into the mountains with one or two boys, and mothers were worried when he brought their children up to his office.” The young woman also created an email address to collect testimonies.
So how should the memory of clerics suspected of abuse be handled? A question that remains unanswered, as the Catholic Church rarely launches investigations following a single testimony.