A “founding day, historic, a collective work”, greeted Jean-Marc Sauvé, president of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase): for the first time, thirteen associations and collectives of victims of abuse and sexual violence in the Catholic Church gathered to symbolically mark the first anniversary of the submission of the Ciase report.
>> Child crime in the Church: what to remember from the report of the Sauvé commission, which delivers a damning inventory for the institution
On October 5, 2021, the body revealed, after two and a half years of work, “overwhelming” figures, estimating at around 330,000 the number of victims of priests, deacons, religious or people linked to the Church (teachers, supervisors…) for 70 years, assaulted when they were minors.
After years of struggle each in their own corner everywhere in France, getting together is in this respect an opportunity to regain strength, to reiterate that the Church must continue to raise awareness, as the testimonies of victims continue to flock. “Recently, I discovered that ten kilometers from my home, the village priest had abused dozens and dozens of kids, thus reports Jean-René Nicoleau, member of the collective 85 of the victims of Vendée. And no one knew…”
“When you start to dig a little, a former altar boy says that he was assaulted, and that another child too. And as you dig deeper and deeper, you realize that it’s a whole network that exist.”
Jean-Rene Nicoleauat franceinfo
Many testimonies, painful to hear: “Today we are, for some of us, completely tired, flushed, sighs Olivier Savignac, the president of the association Parler et revivre, and member of the collective De la parole aux acts. And we are almost the substitute for bodies that should be able to accommodate the suffering of all these people.”
Because according to Olivier Savignac, the care of victims by the Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation (Inirr) and by the Commission for Recognition and Reparation (CRR), responsible for the recognition and reparation of acts of pedocrime in the Church, is not at the level: “Some who had made requests from January had a few referents between March and June, and it was sometimes catastrophic, with files that had to be taken over by a new referent.”
“It’s a new blow of bamboo behind the head!, continues Olivier Savignac. For instance, today a person could not come because he is completely stunned by the bad care he has suffered.” And this chaotic psychological care is accompanied, he also denounces, by a process of recognition that is too slow. “For people who submitted their file in April or May, it takes at least 15 to 18 months. And now, the president of Inirr, Marie Derain de Vaucresson, announces a six-month delay: this Is not fair, storm the president of the collective of victims. Today, victims need to be heard, to be reassured. And that, I believe it is the duty of the bodies that have set themselves up to go to the front, to recontact these people and to reassure them so that they will soon be taken care of. To date only forty victims have been compensated.