Sexual abuse in the Church: with the Sauvé report, “it is a question of facing the disaster”

“Telling the truth is like open heart surgery: you risk your skin, but if you don’t, you risk death.” This is how Sister Véronique Margron, president of the Conference of Religious of France (Corref) explains to France 24 the extreme importance of the report on child crime in the Catholic Church, which will be unveiled on Tuesday, October 5.

After two and a half years of work, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase), chaired by Jean-Marc Sauvé, will unveil the results of its work in a report of some 2,500 pages, eagerly awaited by the victims, but also by the Conference of Bishops of France (CEV) and Corref, which ordered it at the end of 2018.

Jean-Marc Sauvé had already made public figures from this report on Sunday to AFP. According to the latter, the number of identified predators is “2,900 to 3,200” men – priests or religious – a “minimum estimate”, he says.

On the eve of the presentation of the conclusions of the Ciase on the subject, Sr Véronique Margron underlines the essential character of such a report, which constitutes according to her the first stage of “restorative justice”.

“It was necessary to quantify, but also to document, to understand what went wrong in governance [de l’Église catholique], in training, and all that has participated in the omerta, silence, secrecy and minimization of the facts, “she told France 24.” We must look all this in the face if the ‘we want to be able to change it. It is as terrible as it is fundamental. “

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Culture of secrecy and excess of sacralization

For its work, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church has made the words of victims “the matrix of its work”, according to Jean-Marc Sauvé. A call for testimonies, open for 17 months, made it possible to collect no less than 6,500 calls or contacts from victims or relatives. Some 250 long hearings or research interviews were then given, and a vast investigation, accompanied by a dive into numerous archives (in particular of the Church and of the Ministries of Justice and of the Interior), was launched with Inserm in order to measure sexual violence throughout France.

“For several years, we have been trying to do something about these tragedies and these crimes”, explains Sr Véronique Margron, who concedes that the Church’s efforts have so far been “clumsy” and “fragmentary”.

At the end of 2018, while the Preynat affair has shaken the judicial and ecclesiastical spheres for two years already, the need to understand the mechanisms of child crime in the Catholic Church can no longer wait. “We could no longer be judge and party,” said the president of Corref. “Whatever our good will or our competence, just being in it made this work impossible, we had to propose an independent commission.”

The Ciase’s mission is to identify the number of victims and compare the prevalence of sexual violence in the Church with that identified in other institutions, such as sports associations, at school and in the family circle.

Weight of clericalism, omerta on the phenomena of influence… the commission also evaluated the “mechanisms, in particular institutional and cultural”, which could favor this pedocriminality. “These are correlations, and not a single cause”, explains Sr Véronique Margron, evoking above all “the culture of secrecy” and the “excess of sacralization of priests and religious”.

“If you are in a situation of overhang, you are as if exempt from the law”, continues the nun. “All these elements participated in these crimes and in the fact that they were concealed or so minimized that we did not even see that they were crimes: we considered that as sins – which is a theological category therefore very internal – or as inappropriate gestures. However, a rape is a crime, it is not an inappropriate gesture. “

“Restorative justice”

The diagnosis made, the Commission must list, Tuesday, 45 proposals which will affect several areas.

In its capacity as principal, Corref has already obtained feedback from Ciase and is considering the site to be put in place for the implementation of this “restorative justice”.

The presentation of the report is the first step. “It is a question of looking the disaster in the face”, affirms Sr Véronique Margron. “It is never easy to watch a disaster, especially when it is a disaster committed in your own home”, she continues, evoking the need to “take the fairest decisions possible, today where it is already. so late”.

The work carried out by Ciase has in fact consisted of investigating and collecting information dating back to 1950. A number of crimes committed then are now time-barred, and a number of predators are now dead.

In June 2020, Jean-Marc Sauvé had given a provisional estimate of at least “1,500 perpetrators” and no less than “3,000 victims”. Almost a year later, the latter figure was widely revised upwards, the investigation revealing “at least 10,000 victims” according to “a low range”. An estimate “which is due to the fact that we are convinced today that the call for testimonies could not reach all the victims”, then analyzed Jean-Marc Sauvé from Franceinfo.

For the president of Corref, the presentation of this report, Tuesday, could precisely allow to free the word of many other victims. “The first decision is to ensure that victims who have not yet been able to speak can do so in the safest and most professional conditions,” she said. At the same time, the reflection also focuses on repairs. “How to repair the irreparable? None of us can repair a life, but that does not mean that nothing should be repaired at all”, continues Sr. Véronique Margron.

For its part, the episcopate has already taken the initiative by promising a system of financial “contributions”, paid from 2022, but which is not, however, unanimous among the victims.

“The recommendations of the Ciase are linked to what failed yesterday”, concluded Sr Véronique Margron, who added that a General Assembly will take place next November in order to adjust the policy of the Corref and put in place the repairs.

Until then, the nun recalls that the first step in initiating change is to look at the truth, and the victims, straight in the eyes. “If we don’t do this, we are sure to remain in the lie, and therefore in a total betrayal of the gospel,” she said. “Like open-heart surgeries, they are highly risky operations, but essential so that there are no more casualties.”