France’s bishops continue efforts to better address clergy sex abuse
French episcopal conference looks at the painful issue of abuse at its fall meeting
The Catholic bishops of France have spent a full day of their episcopal conference’s November 3-8 plenary assembly addressing ways to prevent clergy sex abuse and better respond to the needs of victims.
"The freedom of the Church commits us to continue our work of acknowledging the sexual abuse committed by priests and the suffering of their victims," said Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the French Episcopal Conference (CEF), at the end of the last assembly in June.
But those words continued to echo on November 5, as the bishops took up the painful issue again during their latest virtual assembly.
The prelates looked specifically at how the Church can more effectively express its concern for the victims.
The thorny issue of financial compensation
Much of the discussion was expected to focus on the financial compensation for abuse, without arriving at any clear-cut conclusions.
While the intention has been clearly expressed at previous assemblies, the financial implementation is thorny in more than one respect, be it the legal framework, the timing or the form of this compensation.
Even the question of terminology has prompted reactions. Is it compensation, restitution or reparation?
A broader formula prevailed in November 2019, when by a large majority, the bishops adopted the principle of a "lump-sum financial gesture" that would have the value of "compensation for suffering".
Setting an amount
"This gesture aims to recognize that the suffering of the victims is also due to various types of failures within the Church," confided Archbishop de Moulins-Beaufort during the November 2019 assembly in Lourdes.
It now remains to fix the amount. But already precarious finances of the Church of France have been further strained by the coronavirus lockdown.
Nevertheless, the CEF president has acknowledged that "money is a necessary element in our society to recognize the suffering of the victims”.
“With a financial proposal, we show that we are concretely committed, it is not just words," he has said.
But what amount should be set?
A sum of €3,000 to €5,000 is said to be under consideration. While some say the figure is only "symbolic", abuse victims have called it "a joke".
The Catholic Church in Germany initially set its compensation to victims at €5,000, but that proved to be insufficient, so it was revised to up to €50,000.
Catholic leaders in Belgium and Switzerland are looking to set a limit on compensation payments, trying to avoid the sums sought in court by the victims in the United States, which have caused the bankruptcy of several dioceses.
In order to meet the expenses, the French bishops last year approved the principle of an endowment fund. This would be supplemented by the dioceses, and could be augmented by the personal contributions of bishops, guilty priests and the faithful.
This plan also provoked various reactions and is likely to have been further discussed this week.
3,000 victims of sexual abuse within the Church
Finally, the bishops are still awaiting for the final report from the Independent Commission of Inquiry into Sexual Abuse within the Church (CIASE), which is due in the fall of 2021.
Mandated jointly by the Conference of Religious Men and Women of France and the CEF, the commission, chaired by respected civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé, will also have to formulate recommendations.
One of them will concern reparation and compensation for the more than 3,000 people who the CIASE estimates have been victims of sex abuse in the Church.
At the heart of the bishops’ debates this week, the thorny and sensitive financial question was only one aspect of the issue.
"It’s difficult in making people understand the meaning of this voluntary approach by the Church, which is a global approach towards the victims, and which is not just a financial gesture," said CEF spokesperson Vincent Neymon at a press conference in September.
Thus, three working groups were to report to the assembly on the progress of their work.
Essential questions that don’t get a lot of publicity, but require in-depth work, include prevention, follow-up with guilty priests and how the Church can commemorate these tragedies.
These are questions not just for the bishops, but for all the baptized.