Independent Commission Suspects About 3,000 Pedophiles In The French Catholic Church Over The Last 70 Years

Illustration of a Catholic church in Biarritz, France. (Wikimedia Commons/Emmanuel DYAN)

JAKARTA - The French Catholic Church has an estimated 3,000 pedophiles in its ranks over the past 70 years, the head of an independent commission investigating the sexual abuse scandal said in an interview published on Sunday.

The scandal in the French Church is the latest to hit the Roman Catholic Church, which has been rocked by scandals of sexual abuse around the world, often involving children in the past 20 years.

The French commission will publish its findings on Tuesday, marking the culmination of two and a half years of work investigating allegations of abuse dating back to the 1950s.

"We estimate the number (of pedophiles) at 3,000, out of 115,000 priests and religious officials, going back to the 1950s," commission chief Jean-Marc Sauve told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

A spokesman representing the French Catholic Bishops' Conference declined to comment on Sauve's remarks. Meanwhile, a Vatican spokesman said he would wait for the full report to be published, before deciding whether to comment.

In June, Pope Francis said the Catholic Church's sexual abuse crisis was a "catastrophe" worldwide.

The French Catholic Church posted a prayer on its official Twitter account on Sunday, on behalf of the victims, and added that it would also hold a prayer on October 5, the day the report was published.

"Dear God, we entrust to You all who have been victims of sexual violence and assault in the Church. We pray that we can always count on Your support and help during this ordeal," he wrote on his Twitter account.

Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis has taken a series of steps aimed at eliminating the sexual abuse of minors by priests and church officials.

In 2019, the Pope issued a landmark decree making bishops directly responsible for sexual abuse or covering it up, requiring clergy to report any case to Church superiors, allowing anyone to complain directly to the Vatican if necessary.

This year, he issued the most extensive revision of Catholic Church laws in four decades, insisting bishops take action against clerics who abuse minors and vulnerable adults. Critics say he hasn't done enough.

The French Church, which has seen a decline in congregations in recent years, said in March it would seek financial compensation for those who were victims of abuse.

Separately, last month the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cologne decided to take a "spiritual break" from his duties, after committing a grave mistake in the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

Meanwhile, a report published last year in England said the Catholic Church received more than 900 complaints involving more than 3,000 cases of child sex abuse in England and Wales between 1970 and 2015, and there have been more than 100 reports a year since 2016.