In his closing address at the French bishops’ meeting in Lourdes, Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, the president of the episcopal conference, said that “our Church is a place of serious crimes, of frightening attacks on the lives and integrity of children and adults.”
“We must recognize and confess it: we have allowed an ecclesial system to develop which—far from bearing life and opening up to spiritual liberty—damages, crushes, tramples on human beings and their most basic rights,” he added.
The bishops met a month after the publication of a report that found that more than 200,000 children were abused by Catholic clerics over the past 70 years, and another 100,000 by lay church workers. The bishops adopted a number of resolutions to address the abuse crisis, including
• the establishment of an independent authority for financial reparations to abuse victims, led by Marie Derain, former president of the National Council for Child Protection.
• a request to Pope Francis to send a team of visitors to evaluate their efforts
• a pledge to sell diocesan properties to compensate victims
• an external audit of current efforts to address abuse
• criminal background checks on all who work with minors
• the participation of at least one woman in the administration of every seminary.