- France’s Catholic Church announced it will raise funds by selling real estate and even taking out loans, in order to compensate thousands of parishioners sexually abused by priests over the past years
- In October, a major investigation found French clerics sexually abused more than 200,000 children
- Pope Francis called the French findings, the latest in a series of international sexual abuse scandals involving the Roman Catholic Church, “a moment of shame”
PARIS, France: On Monday, France’s Catholic Church announced it will raise funds by selling real estate and even taking out loans, in order to compensate thousands of parishioners sexually abused by priests over the past 70 years.
In October, a major investigation found French clerics sexually abused more than 200,000 children.
France’s top bishop, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, said a senior clergy meeting in the holy city of Lourdes recognized the Catholic Church’s “institutional responsibility” and decided “to go on a path of recognition and reparation.”
A fund will be established by bishops “financed to whatever extent necessary through the divestment of real estate and other assets,” de Moulins-Beaufort, archbishop of Reims and the head of the French Bishops’ conference, told journalists.
“If needed, we are also prepared to take out loans in order to fulfill our obligations,” he added, but he did not indicate the fund’s value or what properties would be sold.
The October report also found the French Catholic Church had protected itself, rather than the victims of its clerics’ systemic abuse, showing “deep, total and even cruel indifference for years.”
Pope Francis called the French findings, the latest in a series of international sexual abuse scandals involving the Roman Catholic Church, “a moment of shame”
De Moulins-Beaufort stressed that bishops also decided to ask the Pope to send them special envoys to manage the handling of individual abuse cases.
