Child crime in the church: shocking figures

The eagerly awaited report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase) is due to be made public on Tuesday, October 5. Also known as the Sauvé Commission, after its president Jean-Marc Sauvé, it is responsible for shedding light on all the attacks committed since the 1950s. To achieve this, the Ciase had launched a call for testimonies from June 2019 to October 2020 During the seventeen months of the special operation, 6,500 calls from victims or relatives were received, leading to around 250 hearings. This long-term work has made it possible to estimate that “at least 10,000“minors or vulnerable adults (abuse of authority, spiritual hold and others) have been sexually assaulted by clerics since 1950, according to the conclusions of Jean-Marc Sauvé, relayed by LCI, Sunday October 3. A source familiar with the matter told the newspaper that this figure should even be “sharply revised upwards“.

The cross-checking of the information provided by the various testimonies reveals that 50% of the reported cases took place between 1950 and 1969, 18% of the cases during the 1970s, 12% occurred in the 1980s, 7% in the 1990s , 3% for the years 2000 and 5.7% in the course of the years 2010. The attacks were committed in schools (34%), within the framework of the catechism or chaplaincies (21%) but also in the movements youth camps or summer camps (12%).

87% of victims were minors at the time of the incident

At 62%, the appellant victims were men. More than 30% of them are currently over 70 years old, 50% are in the 50-69 bracket, while 17% are between 30 and 49 years old and 2% are under 30 years old. The majority of complainants (87%) were abused when they were minors: between 6 and 10 years (30%), between 11 and 15 years (35%) and for 7% at the age of 16 or 17 years . The adults, and the emphasis is on young adults, are 13% of which 33% of them were religious seminarians according to the Ciase.