A statue of the Virgin Mary in front of a Catholic establishment in Lestelle-Betharram, March 6, 2024 in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (AFP / GAIZKA IROZ)
“We opened Pandora’s box,” says a former student. In recent weeks, reports of violence, sexual assault and rape dating back to the 1970s and 1990s have been piling up around a Catholic establishment in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Twenty initial complaints led the Pau public prosecutor’s office, at the beginning of February, to open a preliminary investigation. Thirteen were added quickly and others should follow soon, “in substantial numbers”, assures Alain Esquerre, 52, his hand resting on a thick file.
Since he created a group on Facebook to collect testimonies, this former resident of the institution founded in 1837 in Lestelle-Bétharram, near Lourdes, has been overwhelmed by stories describing a “system of predators”.
Six priests and two lay people are incriminated by former students for acts committed between 1970 and 1990 at Notre-Dame-de-Bétharram, a Catholic establishment under contract now renamed Ensemble du Beau Rameau.
The voice of Alain Esquerre, a student in the 1980s, trembles with anger. “I will never accept this gratuitous violence that we have suffered, I have been warning for years, years of childhood were stolen from me. There, we discover the unspeakable, it must be a national scandal!” .
Antoine (first name changed), 47 years old, filed a complaint in 1999, which was dismissed. He was aiming for a general supervisor. “It was my word against his, I was disgusted that no one believed me,” he told AFP.
– “I was a baby” –
The forty-year-old filed a new one last month against this layman still in office – he was dismissed on February 14 by management in the name of the “precautionary principle”.
Antoine will always remember the “first time”, in the supervisor’s shower. “I was a baby,” he whispers. Then the sexual assaults at scout camp. “I was sleeping in his tent, I was 14, it’s still crazy.”
View of a Catholic establishment in Lestelle-Betharram, March 6, 2024 in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (AFP / GAIZKA IROZ)
At the end of school, the teenager will even live with the person concerned, near the establishment. “He only wanted to have me for himself, everyone knew that I slept there,” adds the former student, referring to masturbation, “once a week for four years”, and “at least” one fellatio imposed.
When he discovered the group of plaintiffs, he “blubbered”: “Even 26 years later, I am ready to go to war, I am waiting for people to believe me, I want him to be judged.” The extension of the deadline for filing a complaint – 30 years after the age of majority for a minor – and his age mean that his is not affected by the limitation period.
Brice, 48, filed a complaint for rape and violence between 1984 and 1991. He implicates another former lay supervisor, targeted by 29 complaints according to Alain Esquerre.
He also denounces a former director of the institution, indicted for rape of a minor in 1998 and who committed suicide in 2000 in Rome. “When I found out, I didn’t tell myself that the others couldn’t get through it,” recalls Brice, whose complaint is also not exposed to the statute of limitations.
Another veteran of Bétharram, Christophe Marejano, 54, denounces a “system of predators spread over 35 years”.
– “Silence as a method” –
Schooled from 1980 to 1987 in the boarding school which has since been converted into a lodging for pilgrims, he remembers “silence as a method”. “We had to be silent all the time, in the dormitories, in studies, in the showers (…) The victims lived this ordeal alone.”
View of a Catholic establishment in Lestelle-Betharram, March 6, 2024 in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (AFP / GAIZKA IROZ)
For him, the physical violence began “from the first evening, at 10 years old”. He suffered the so-called “stoop” punishment, which consisted of putting the students “outside, in their underwear, sometimes in the middle of the night in winter”: “We could wait hours to receive our correction.”
The Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Bétharram, established in 15 countries, says it is “aware of the suffering of the victims of these abominable acts”, through the voice of Father Jean-Marie Ruspil, its regional vicar, and is committed to provide support to victims “in this painful and bitter process of reconstruction”.
The congregation, which managed the Béarnais establishment until 2009, today exercises co-supervision, with that of the Daughters of the Cross, over the school complex which welcomes 520 students from nursery to baccalaureate.
Contacted by AFP, the director, Romain Clercq, expressed his “compassion” and his “support” for the victims of acts that he “firmly condemns”.
After the report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase), which estimated the number of victims at 216,000 between 1950 and 2020, testimonies from former Bétharram students were transmitted to the reception unit of the diocese of Tarbes or to the Recognition and Reparation Commission (CRR), indicates the regional vicar, without specifying the number.
The recommendations “were all followed, with the triggering of the compensation process”, he assures.