“Otherwise, it’s no use”

Now that the word is free, that the omerta is broken, the faithful want to go to the end. Saturday 6 November associations of victims demonstrated in Paris and Lourdes or the pressure is growing around men of God. Monday, November 8 the conclusions of the Assembly of French bishops in Lourdes will be known. The clergy are promising strong announcements, a month after the publication of the Sauvé report on children victims of sexual assault by laypeople or religious, and after having recognized the institutional responsibility of the Church in these crimes. On the side of the faithful, the expectations are very high.

“We stole childhood, we stole part of the life of all these people and I hope our bishops will finally hear the sane spirit which I believe they missed”, believes Christiane, a faithful. Like her, other believers come to Lourdes to challenge religious leaders. “You have the possibility of saying to these religious: stop!”, launches a faithful.

Facing them, the Bishop of Versailles, Luc Crépy, accustomed to these calls to action since the publication of the Sauvé report. “Already, in my diocese, I have a lot of Catholics who shook me and who told me: we are counting on you, we hope that you will be up to Lourdes to meet the great expectations and the great challenges which are asked by the report of Ciase. “

Among these challenges is the issue of compensation for victims. Joëlle will pay close attention to this. “I send emails to my bishop, to the priests of my parish. I try to explain to them that, for example, I give the Denarius of the Church but here I do not want to give, she says. They have to fix it with ourselves. “

“We Christians, we must see in our chapels unhooked works. We must suffer with the victims materially, otherwise it means that we are hypocrites.”

Joëlle, a believer

to franceinfo

Reparation and its modalities, this is what awaits Marie-Hélène, 60, sexually assaulted when she was a child and still traumatized. “That’s the lesser of it”, she explains. These repairs would allow him to be able to “to heal”, “to be able to pay for me care”. For her, “recognition was the first step, it was essential” but she’s waiting now “the repair, otherwise it is useless”.

The bishops promise to be “up to it” at the end of the Plenary Assembly
with the announcement of strong measures.