On Tuesday an independent inquiry, commissioned by the French Catholic Church in 2018,  said it had concluded there were about 216 000 victims of sexual abuse carried out by the French Catholic Church’s clergy between 1950 and 2020.

The inquiry spent more than two-and-a-half years examining court, police and Church records and speaking to victims and witnesses.

It is the latest in a series of reports and investigations that have helped cast light on abuses in the Catholic church.

The report estimates the number of perpetrators to be at least around 3,000, with most of them being priests or clerics.

The report, of approximately 2,500 pages, said the “vast majority” of victims were boys, many of them aged between 10 and 13.

Church had not only failed to prevent abuse but had also failed to report such abuse. It further found that children were at time knowingly put in contact with predators.

Several cases of abuse have been forwarded to law enforcement officials. In many cases, however, the time period for proceeding in French courts have expired.

Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the Bishops’ Conference of France, who co-requested the report, said the numbers of victims and their experiences were “beyond what we could imagine”. He said:  “I express my shame, my fear, my determination to act with them [the victims] so that the refusal to see, the refusal to hear, the desire to hide or mask the facts, the reluctance to denounce them publicly, disappears.”

On Tuesday an independent inquiry, commissioned by the French Catholic Church in 2018,  said it had concluded there were about 216 000 victims of sexual abuse carried out by the French Catholic Church’s clergy between 1950 and 2020.

The inquiry spent more than two-and-a-half years examining court, police and Church records and speaking to victims and witnesses.

It is the latest in a series of reports and investigations that have helped cast light on abuses in the Catholic church.

The report, of approximately 2,500 pages, said the “vast majority” of victims were boys, many of them aged between 10 and 13.

The Church had not only failed to prevent abuse but had also failed to report such abuse. It further found that children were at time knowingly put in contact with predators.

Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the Bishops’ Conference of France, who co-requested the report, said the numbers of victims and their experiences were “beyond what we could imagine”. He said:  “I express my shame, my fear, my determination to act with them [the victims] so that the refusal to see, the refusal to hear, the desire to hide or mask the facts, the reluctance to denounce them publicly, disappears.”

On Wednesday Pope Francis said he was ‘saddened and ashamed’ by the Catholic Church’s inability to deal with sexual abuse of children in France and that the Church must make itself a “safe home for everyone”.