The police have identified between 2,900 and 3,200 aggressors, although they have made it clear that, in principle, they are more numerous. The victims of the clergy are 216,000 and the number increases to 330,000, if one takes into account the lay aggressors who practice in schools of the Catholic Church, catechesis or any other type of violence.

The French Episcopal Conference and the Religious Conference have shown their shame, anger and pain “in the face of so many lives destroyed”. They claim that it is a cruel reality that they could not imagine, that they believed the figures have surpassed, and admit that there were shortcomings so that so many cases could happen with impunity and over the years.

Systematic

In fact, the conclusion is clear: there has been systematic abuse within this religious institution and the report has analysed the mechanisms that have allowed it. Behind the family and the company, the Church is the area of the French State where the most sexual abuse of minors has been recorded. The Independent Commission has called on the Catholic Church to shoulder its responsibility and to provide economic reparation to the victims.

Cruel indifference

The chairman of the committee has accused the Church of cruelty and indifference to these victims until the twenty-first century, and has reproached him for not listening to the victims, who did not believe them. The President of the European Commission asked for psychological attention during the investigation carried out in France.

What about the Spanish state?

The report, of some 2,500 pages, has testimonies of victims and witnesses to complete the investigation, and the judicial, police and assigned files by the French Church have also been key to explaining the causes. Unlike other states in the area, in Spain and Italy the Church has not yet wanted to disseminate its archives in order to be aware of abuses.