A provocative French TV investigation has accused several Catholic bishops of protecting alleged clerical sex abusers in France in the past 50 years.
'Paedophilia in the Church: The Burden of Silence,' aired March 21, and accused 25 Catholic bishops of shielding 32 clerics who faced accusations of sex abuse, according to The National Catholic Reporter.
The France 2 programme has been described as 'a French Spotlight', comparing it to the famous Boston Globe investigation that unveiled a systemic clerical sex abuse scandal in 2002.
The French broadcast reported the findings of a year-long inquiry which found 339 victims of sex abuse by priests. 228 of the victims were under 15 at the time, and only 165 of the cases were reported to civil authorities.
The programme reported that 28 of the 32 alleged abusers were moved to new parishes or countries when the allegations were made. It also found that 16 of the alleged abusers were accused after 2000, when the bishops' conference had said abuse guidelines would be tightened and abusive clerics would be handed to the authorities. Five of the 25 accused bishops are still in office.
The French bishops' conference chose not to participate in the broadcast, and a conference spokesman said investigating journalists had tried to blackmail the Church. The programme followed the news magazine 'Cash Investigation', working with the online journal Mediapart, investigating the Church and interviewing abuse victims, using hidden cameras and popping questions at clerics including Pope Francis.
The bishops conference spokesman, Monsignor Olivier Ribadeau Dumas, said the Church would not participate in a post-broadcast debate, because of the 'the methods used for the interviews'.
He said: 'It seems that journalistic ethics were not respected and that this program was more concerned with accusing than with explaining'. A deputy conference spokesman accused the programme of 'scandal reporting'.
The editor-in-chief of 'Cash Investigation', Emmanuel Gagnier, hit back: 'We regret that the bishops' conference spokesman preferred to launch public polemics rather than come to a debate in our studio despite several invitations.'
The reform group Catholic Conference of the Francophone Baptized were critical of bishops' refusal to engage with the inquiry. It said: 'Our bishops are often prompt to express their disagreement with society or demonstrate very visibly on the streets or in the media about abortion, end-of-life issues or gay marriage.
'But when they're the ones being taken to task, they tend to slip away. It's too bad, because this gives the impression they have something to hide or feel ashamed of.'
After the programme, Msgr Dumas said on RMC radio that he watched it 'with a feeling of shame...We did not respect the victims and our approach was to first protect our institutions...Today, the guidelines are extremely clear.'
