Rome Newsroom, 08 November, 2021 / 8:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Catholic bishops in France announced Monday that they have agreed to “a vast program of renewal” of governance practices in response to a landmark report on clerical sex abuse.
Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the French bishops’ conference, said Nov. 8 that the bishops had decided to “initiate a path of recognition and reparation opening for the victims the possibility of mediation and compensation.”
“All of the resolutions that we have voted on constitute a vast program of renewal of our governance practices at the level of the dioceses and at the level of the Church in France,” the archbishop of Reims said in an address broadcast live on French television.
Moulins-Beaufort made the announcement on the final day of the bishops’ plenary assembly in Lourdes, southwestern France, which took place Nov. 2-8.
During the week-long meeting, the bishops heard from multiple abuse victims and discussed the implications of an independent report estimating that hundreds of thousands of children were abused in the Catholic Church in France over the past 70 years.