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Around three thousand paedophiles have operated inside the French Catholic Church since 1950.
The numbers were released, Sunday by Jean-Marc Sauvé, the head of an independent commission examining church sex abuse.
The commission has been investigating for 2 1/2 years.
22 cases of alleged crimes have been forwarded to prosecutors and more than 40 cases have been forwarded to Church officials because the alleged offences are too old to prosecute.
“From 1950 to 1970, the church is completely indifferent to the victims: They don’t exist, the suffering inflicted on children is ignored,” the newspaper quoted him as saying. “The periods that followed were different,” said Sauvé.
He did not give a figure on the number of victims, however, the number will be released on Tuesday when the 2,500-page report is made public.
The independent commission was established in 2018 by the Catholic Church in France.
Its formation also came after Pope Francis passed a landmark measure obliging those who know about sex abuse in the Catholic Church to report it to their superiors.
The commission comprises 22 legal professionals, doctors, historians, sociologists and theologians.
It is financed by the French Catholic Bishops conference but members are not paid. They do not receive instructions from the Church.
In March 2021, CNN reports the commission estimated clergy could have abused 10,000 minors and other vulnerable people since 1950.
In March, the Vatican’s Archbishop Charles Scicluna, top investigator of sex abuse, told CNN new Church rules added a layer of accountability for church leaders.
“First of all that leadership is not above the law,” Scicluna said, “and second that leadership needs to know, all of us in leadership we need to know, that if the people love the Church they’re going to denounce us when we do something wrong.”
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