The bishop and the prosecutor of Versailles signed a protocol facilitating the transmission of denunciations of sexual offenses received by the diocese.
The bishop and the prosecutor of Versailles signed a protocol on Friday to facilitate the transmission to justice of denunciations, received by the diocese, of sexual offenses committed by members of the clergy, religious or even lay people.
The agreements between dioceses and public prosecutor’s offices include a commitment by the former to transmit the reports and a commitment by the latter to expedite the investigations as soon as possible. They have now been signed in about twenty dioceses, out of 98.
“Compared to a time when, in the Church, these questions were really, sometimes, left under the carpet, (…) today we try to be in the light, in transparency, in justice” , declared during the signature Mgr Luc Crepy, bishop of Versailles and also president, for six years, of the council for the prevention of the fight against pedocrime in the Catholic Church.
“The key words are duration and confidence”
The diocese of Versailles was already carrying out “close work” with justice, notes Mgr Luc Crepy, but this protocol aims to “go beyond the interpersonal relationship of the bishop and the prosecutor” to “endorse an operational framework”.
“The key words are duration, because the ‘processes’ must be registered in an institutional way, and then trust”, added the prosecutor of Versailles, Maryvonne Caillibotte.
This protocol does not concretely change the legal procedure, notes the prosecutor, but it will however allow justice to “trace more” these sensitive files.
The Sauvé report, which revealed in October the extent of pedocrime in the Catholic Church, had recommended “generalizing” these protocols. A parliamentary working group which examined the follow-up to the Sauvé report judged, in mid-February, “relevant” to make them “mandatory”.
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