French Catholic Church had 3,000 paedophiles since 1950s, says commission

Posted on Oct 04, 2021

THE French Catholic Church has had an estimated 3,000 paedophiles in its ranks over the past 70 years, the head of an independent commission Jean-Marc Sauve probing the sex abuse scandal said in an interview published yesterday.

The scandal in the French Church is the latest to hit the Roman Catholic Church, which has been rocked by sexual abuse scandals around the world, often involving children, over the past 20 years.

The French commission is due to publish its findings tomorrow, marking the culmination of 2-1/2 years of work, probing allegations of abuse going back to the 1950s.

“We have estimated the number (of paedophiles) as standing at 3,000, out of 115,000 priests and religious officials, going back to the 1950s,” the commission head told the Journal du Dimanche paper.

But, a spokesperson representing the French Catholic Bishops’ Conference declined to comment on Sauve’s remarks.

A Vatican spokesperson said it would wait for the full report to be published before deciding on whether to comment.