The head of an independent commission investigating child sexual abuse in the French Catholic church has said about 3,000 paedophiles, some of them priests, have operated inside the institution since 1950.
The striking revelation has been made by Jean-Marc Sauve, the head of an independent commission, which is investigating the scandal, to AFP news agency, days ahead of the release of its report.
The report looked into “the mechanisms, notably institutional and cultural ones” within the Church, which allowed paedophiles to function. It will also offer 45 proposals.
Philippe Portier, a sociologist on the commission, promised the report would “not go easy on anyone.”
Veronique Margron, the President of the CORREF conference, said, “I expect that we will be forced to confront this burden, as bleak as it is, so that we can then take the necessary measures”.
Last year, a defrocked French Catholic priest, Bernard Preynat, 75, was sentenced to five years in jail for sexually abusing boy scouts aged between seven and 14 in his care between 1971 and 1991, following allegations his superior had covered up the abuse.
