Pedocriminality: the compensation fund for victims financed by the sale of “goods” of the Church of France

Published on : 08/11/2021 – 14:28

The bishops meeting in Lourdes announced Monday that the victims’ compensation fund will be financed by the sale of Church property or by loans. They also indicated the establishment of an independent national recognition and reparation body responsible for investigating victims’ claims.

After recognition, the hour of reparation has come for the Catholic Church in France. The bishops have pledged to “top up” the compensation fund for victims of child crime in the Church “by relinquishing property of the Conference of Bishops of France and the Dioceses (CEF)”, announced Monday, November 8 , its president.

In addition, if necessary, “a loan can be taken out to anticipate needs”, added Eric de Moulins-Beaufort to the press at the end of the plenary assembly of the CEF.

The bishops meeting in Lourdes also decided on Monday to set up an independent national body for recognition and reparation, which will examine the claims of victims of sexual violence and will be headed by the lawyer Marie Derain de Vaucresson, announced Mgr de Moulins- Beaufort.

This is one of the resolutions adopted by the episcopate, unveiled by Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, the president of the Conference of Bishops of France, during a press conference in Lourdes. Ms. Derain de Vaucresson, former defender of children, will constitute “her team as she pleases on the model of the Sauvé commission,” he said.

While the bishops on Friday recognized the “institutional responsibility” of the Church in the sexual abuse of which tens of thousands of children were victims for several decades and the “duty of justice and reparation” that this observation entailed, the victims and the associations representing them hoped for a concrete mechanism to be set up.

With AFP

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