According to an independent commission investigating sexual abuse, thousands of child abusers have worked in France’s Catholic Church over the past 70 years.
The Commission president Jean-Marc Sauve said that the church has employed an estimated 3,000 abusers since the 1950s, two-thirds of whom are priests. Mr Sauve gave the estimate in an interview with France’s Journal du Dimanche newspaper ahead of the full findings’ release on Tuesday.
During the two-and-a-half-year investigation, 22 abuse cases were sent to prosecutors, Mr Sauve said, while over 40 alleged crimes that are too old to be prosecuted but involve living suspects have been forwarded to church officials.
“We evaluated their number at 3,000, out of 115,000 priests and church people since the 1950s,” Mr Save said. “Two-thirds are diocesan priests.”
