The meeting is always a key moment for the bishops of France. Twice a year, the hierarchs of the Church meet in Lourdes (Hautes-Pyrénées) to discuss the subjects that concern the institution and the developments that they would like to see it take or give it. The plenary assembly which closed on Friday March 22, after three days of work, followed by a press conference given, in particular, by the Archbishop of Reims and president of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF) , Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, was no exception to the rule. On the menu of this large meeting, there was, among other things, reflection on better consideration of adult victims of sexual violence committed by members of the clergy.
Since the outbreak of the sexual violence scandal within it, the Church has tried to put in place means to fight against this evil. If the focus was first placed on minor victims, with the submission of the report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase), in 2021, today, for Catholic leaders, it is to also take an interest in adults who have suffered abuse.
Victims of aggression and also sometimes of psychological or spiritual influence, adults have until now been the blind spot in the strategy put in place at the national, and also international, level to combat abuse. In Rome, in particular, where the pope has taken a series of decisions and measures to combat sexual violence in the Church, the subject still seems largely ignored.
“Get to the end of the work”
This week, the bishops heard the conclusions of the working group of Corinne Boilley, a trained jurist and former deputy general secretary of the CEF, whom they had charged, in April 2023, with submitting a report to them on the subject. In November 2023, during the previous meeting, Mr.me Boilley had made an update, coming to speak before the bishops accompanied by a victim who gave them her testimony.
In its conclusions, it recommends the establishment of a national body solely dedicated to the issue of adult victims of abuse. “It seems necessary that those who have or would have to complain about a priest, a deacon or a lay person with responsibility in the Church are listened to, oriented and accompanied in the justice of our country and towards the canonical justice according to the cases », declared Eric de Moulins-Beaufort in his closing speech on Friday morning. Or, he added, “that a path of restorative justice be offered to them if the first two paths were not possible or not sufficient”.
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