The French Catholic Church has agreed to sell some of its properties to pay compensations to the victims of sexual abuse, French bishops revealed on Monday, only a month after a report detailed long-running sexual abuse by the clergy in the last 70 years.
During an interview, the archbishop of Reims and the president of the Bishops' Conference of France Eric de Moulins-Beaufort said that they would continue to compensate victims and leave no one behind. The announcement comes after he revealed that bishops have been convening to discuss the matter in the last week in Lourdes, a Catholic pilgrimage site located in the southwestern parts of France.
Selling Assets and Properties
On Monday, bishops unanimously approved the measure, which is only one of many that they approved. Victims groups praised the decision and considered it as a major step in the right direction in the French church's reckoning of sexual abuse of its members.
However, the groups said that careful monitoring of the implementation of the measures must be done. The church also decided to create an independent reparations body to process the claims of victims, the New York Times reported.
The report of sexual abuse within the French Catholic Church detailed that clergy members abused more than 200,000 children in the last 70 years. The decision to compensate the massive number of victims will result in a fund "financed to whatever extent necessary through the divestment of real estate and other assets."
Moulins-Beaufort added that if the money from the sale of assets were not enough, the church would be willing to take on loans in order to pay off the compensation of the victims. The reports of the sexual abuse from clergy members allegedly resulted in "deep, total and even cruel indifference for years." The report also argued that the French Catholic Church opted to protect itself and its members instead of the victims of abuse, Reuters reported.
French Church's Sexual Abuse Scandal
The report of widespread sexual abuse by clergy members was the latest, and one of the most controversial issues to rock the Roman Catholic Church worldwide. Moulins-Beaufort said that they felt disgust and horror after realizing the extent of the damage done by the members of the clergy who allegedly conducted the sexual abuse crimes.
France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research into sexual abuse of children in the country was responsible for the broader research that estimated the number of victims. A 2,500-page report was released which gave 45 recommendations for the church, including training of priests and other clerics, revising canon law, and fostering policies to recognize and compensate victims.
While France is a traditionally Roman Catholic country, it continued to follow a strict form of secularism in public life based on a 1905 law separating church and state, Aljazeera reported. A member of De la parole aux actes!, an umbrella association of victim groups that was established after the release of the sweeping report, Olivier Savignac, victims were now waiting on how the measure will be implemented and how the church will converse with the victims.
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