The announcements were eagerly awaited.
A month after the earthquake of the Sauvé report on child crime in the Church, the biennial Conference of the Bishops of France, meeting in Lourdes for a week, unveiled on Monday a series of measures to fight against sexual violence within the religious institution.
After having given a fairly general speech in order to give the first orientations at the end of the morning, Bishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, the president of the Bishops' Conference, unveiled a series of more concrete measures.
"We arrived in Lourdes all very upset, bruised" by the report of the Sauvé commission, "we understood that we had to go to the end of the work of truth", he commented in the preamble.
An independent body
The bishops decided to set up an independent national body for recognition and reparation, entrusted to the lawyer Marie Derain de Vaucresson, a former defender of children.
"She will constitute her team as she pleases and will determine the operating rules," said Bishop de Moulins-Beaufort, assuring that the Church would provide her "with the means" to work.
In detail, its role will be to investigate the requests of victims of sexual violence.
A first concrete step after the recognition, at the end of last week, of the “institutional responsibility of the Church” in the sexual assaults suffered by thousands of victims, as well as their “systemic dimension”.
Compensation for victims
The most eagerly awaited announcement was undoubtedly the compensation for victims.
Because if the Sauvé report recommended that the money used for this purpose come only "from the patrimony of the aggressors and the Church of France", the Confederation of Bishops suggested that it come in part from the donations of the faithful.
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Finally, the prelates voted "by an immense majority" so that the compensation fund is matched by the Church, via the security funds and by "relinquishing real estate and movable property", even leaving, if necessary, to take out a loan.
Without going, therefore, through the gifts of the faithful.
The fact "to take our reserves, it is the sign that we are involved as an institution", commented one of the persons in charge of the Conference of the bishops.
The only exception to this rule is that if a devotee is anxious to make a donation for the victims compensation fund, he can do so.
Another announcement, already made during the closing speech of the Conference held in Lourdes: asking the Pope to send "a team of visitors" to assess the way in which the French Church treats victims of child crime and protects them. minors.
Nine working groups
The president of the Bishops' Conference has also announced the creation of nine working groups, made up of ecclesiastics and lay people, which will focus on different themes: good practices in the face of reported cases, support for the priests involved, training or the causes of sexual violence in the Church.
A report on the progress of these groups will be drawn up before each plenary assembly of the Conference.
The idea is to prepare "a vast renewal of governance".
In addition to these four main measures, Bishop de Moulins-Beaufort also announced that an external audit and regular evaluations would be requested concerning the listening cells of victims, that the judicial records of pastoral agents - whether they are lay people or members of the clergy - be verified before they work with minors or that a canonical criminal court would be put in place from April 1, 2022.