3,000 Predators in French Church

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TRANSCRIPT

Priestly sex abuse is a massive crisis in the modern Church, despite certain prelates trying to claim otherwise. As Church Militant's David Nussman tells us, the crisis is now exploding in France. 

About 3,000 predators have been active in French parishes and dioceses in the past 70 years — this according to an independent commission looking into pedophilia in the Church.

Leader of the commission, civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé, told media on Saturday, "The most terrible thing for me was to see the most absolute of evils — an attack on the physical and mental integrity of children."

The commission's full 2,500-page report on sexual abuse of minors in the Church is slated for release Tuesday.

Another member of the commission, Joël Molinario, shared his thoughts with the media as well.

Molinario: "This is not one thing. That's not it. This is thousands!"

The independent commission was created by the bishops of France in 2018. It was a historic first when the abuse commission first convened in June 2019. At the time, Sauvé remarked, "It is an important action to be able to give victims psychological or legal help."

In February 2019, the French bishops announced plans to grant financial compensation to abuse victims whose claims had passed the statute of limitations.

Catholics in France and abuse victim advocates are waiting to see what the report contains and what will come out of it moving forward.

A particularly infamous case of clerical sex abuse in France was that of ex-priest Bernard Preynat — who assaulted myriad boys over a span of decades in the French equivalent of the Boy Scouts. Preynat himself claims multiple members of the hierarchy turned a blind eye to his predatory behavior.

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