PARIS: French Catholic clergy sexually abused around 216,000 minors spanning seven decades since 1950, a “massive phenomenon” that was covered up by a “veil of silence,” an independent commission said Tuesday.
The commission’s two-and-a-half-year inquiry and 2,500-page report prompted outrage as the Catholic Church in France and around the world faces a growing number of abuse claims and prosecutions.
Pope Francis expressed “great pain” over the “appalling” findings, a Vatican spokesman said, adding: “His thoughts turn first to the victims, with great sorrow for their wounds and gratitude for their courage in speaking out.”
The report found that the “vast majority” of victims were pre-adolescent boys from a variety of social backgrounds. Their abusers were mainly priests, bishops, deacons and monks.
When claims against lay members of the Church, such as teachers at Catholic schools are included, the number of child abuse victims climbs to 330,000 since 1950, the report found.
“These figures are more than worrying, they are damning and in no way can remain without a response,” commission chief Jean-Marc Sauve told a press conference that unveiled the nearly 2,500-page report.
“Until the early 2000s, the Catholic Church showed a profound and even cruel indifference toward the victims.”
Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the Bishops’ Conference of France (CEF), which co-requested the report, expressed his “shame and horror” at the findings.
“My wish today is to ask forgiveness from each of you,” he told the news conference.
Sauve denounced the “systemic character” of efforts to shield clergy from sex abuse claims and urged the Church to pay reparations even though most cases are well beyond the statute of limitations for prosecution.
His commission detailed 45 recommendations to avoid further abuse, not least a requirement that priests inform prosecutors of any child abuse during the sacrament of confession — under Catholic doctrine priests are usually bound to absolute secrecy.
“We expect clear and concrete responses by the Church,” a collective of six victims’ associations said.
The report, at nearly 2,500 pages, found that the “vast majority” of victims were pre-adolescent boys from a variety of social backgrounds.
“The Catholic Church is, after the circle of family and friends, the environment that has the highest prevalence of sexual violence,” the report said.
Sauve had already told AFP on Sunday that a “minimum estimate” of 2,900 to 3,200 clergy members had sexually abused children in the French Church since 1950.
Yet only a handful of cases prompted disciplinary action under canonical law, let alone criminal prosecution.
The commission began its work after Pope Francis vowed to address abuse by priests in May 2019, ordering people aware of cases to report them to Church officials.
In France in particular, the case of Philippe Barbarin, an archbishop initially convicted of not telling police of a priest’s abuse of boy scouts, drew outrage after he was acquitted in January 2020.
Francois Devaux, head of a victims’ association, condemned a “deviant system” and called for a new “Vatican III” council to chart a way forward.
“You have finally given an institutional recognition to victims of all the Church’s responsibilities, something that bishops and the pope have not yet been prepared to do,” Devaux said at the news conference.
“I’m dumbfounded,” said Yolande Ormancey, a 63-year-old parishioner praying Tuesday at the Fourviere basilica in Lyon, southeast France.
“I expect these criminals to be punished, and support offered to victims whose lives have been ruined,” she said.
The victim estimates were largely based on a representative study carried out by France’s INSERM health and medical research institute.
Sauve and his team of 21 specialists, all unaffiliated with the Church, also interviewed hundreds of people who came forward to tell their stories.
“If the veil of silence covering the acts committed has finally been torn away... we owe it to the courage of these victims,” he wrote.
The commission also had access to police files and Church archives, citing only two cases of refusals by Church institutions to turn over requested documents.
Overall, it found that 2.5 percent of French clergy since 1950 had sexually abused minors, a ratio below the 4.4 to seven percent uncovered by similar inquiries in other countries.
While that would imply an unusually high number of victims per assailant, “a sexual predator can in fact have a high number of victims, especially those who attack boys,” the report found.
’Massive’ child sex abuse in French Catholic Church, inquiry finds
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’Massive’ child sex abuse in French Catholic Church, inquiry finds

- Commission's two-and-a-half-year inquiry and 2,500-page report prompted outrage as the Catholic Church in France and around the world faces a growing number of abuse claims and prosecutions
- Pope Francis expressed "great pain" over the "appalling" findings, a Vatican spokesman said
France delivers first Mirage 2000 fighter jets to Ukraine: minister

- France announced the delivery of the first fighter jets as talk of a negotiated end to the nearly three-year war has risen with Donald Trump back in the White House and Ukraine’s troops struggling on
Paris: France on Thursday delivered a first consignment of Mirage 2000-5 fighter jets to Ukraine to help Kyiv defend its airspace against Russia, Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu said on Thursday.
“The first of these aircraft have arrived in Ukraine today,” Lecornu said on X, without saying how many had been delivered. After France helped train Ukrainian pilots over recent months, “they will now help defend Ukraine’s skies,” he added.
Last June, President Emmanuel Macron announced that France would transfer Mirage 2000-5 aircraft to Ukraine and train their Ukrainian pilots as part of military cooperation with Kyiv.
Of the 26 Mirage 2000-5 aircraft owned by the French air force, six were to be transferred to Ukraine, according to a budget report published by France’s National Assembly lower house.
The French defense ministry neither denied nor confirmed the figure for security reasons.
Ukrainian pilots and mechanics have been trained in eastern France to use the jets, which have undergone modifications including to combat Russian jamming.
France announced the delivery of the first fighter jets as talk of a negotiated end to the nearly three-year war has risen with Donald Trump back in the White House and Ukraine’s troops struggling on the battlefield in the east.
In August, Ukraine received its first consignment of US-made F-16 fighter jets.
Spain rejects Israel’s suggestion it should accept Palestinians from Gaza

MADRID: Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares on Thursday rejected the suggestion by Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz that Spain should accept displaced Palestinians from Gaza.
“Gazans’ land is Gaza and Gaza must be part of the future Palestinian state,” Albares said in an interview with Spanish radio station RNE.
Katz ordered the army on Thursday to prepare a plan to allow the “voluntary departure” of residents from the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported.
The instruction followed US President Donald Trump’s shock announcement that the United States plans to take over Gaza, resettle the Palestinians living there and transform the territory into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Katz added Spain, Ireland and Norway, which last year recognized a Palestinian state, are “legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories.”
Bangladesh protesters torch ousted PM Hasina’s father’s home

- The house symbolized Bangladesh’s establishment, as Mujibur Rahman declared independence from there
- Much of Sheikh Hasina Wajid’s family, including her father, was assassinated in the same building in 1975
DHAKA: Thousands of protesters set fire to the home of Bangladesh’s founding leader, as his daughter, ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina delivered a fiery social media speech calling on her supporters to stand against the interim government.
Witnesses said several thousand protesters, some armed with sticks, hammers, and other tools, gathered around the historic house and independence monument, while others brought a crane and excavator to demolish the building.
The rally was organized alongside a broader call, dubbed “Bulldozer Procession,” to disrupt Hasina’s scheduled 9 p.m. online address on Wednesday.
Protesters, many aligned with the “Students Against Discrimination” group, had expressed their fury over Hasina’s speech, which they viewed as a challenge to the newly formed interim government.
Tensions have been escalating in Bangladesh since August 2024, when mass protests forced Hasina to flee to neighboring India.
The interim government, led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, has struggled to maintain control as protests and unrest have continued. Demonstrators have attacked symbols of Hasina’s government, including the house of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which was first set ablaze in August.
A symbol of the country’s establishment, the house is where Bangabandhu (friend of Bengal), as he is popularly known, declared Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971.
A few years later it became the site of a national tragedy. Mujibur Rahman and most of his family were assassinated at the house in 1975. Hasina, who survived the attack, later transformed the building into a museum dedicated to her father’s legacy.
“They can demolish a building, but not the history. History takes its revenge,” Hasina said in her speech on Wednesday.
She urged the people of Bangladesh to stand against the interim government, accusing them of seizing power in an unconstitutional manner.
The student-led movement behind the protests has voiced plans to dismantle the country’s 1972 Constitution, which they argue embodies the legacy of her father’s rule.
What to know about the court cases over President Trump’s birthright citizenship order

- Trump’s executive order aims to end citizenship for children born to parents not legally in the country
SEATTLE: A federal judge who already questioned the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship executive order is set to hear arguments Thursday over a longer-term pause of the directive, which aims to end citizenship for children born to parents not legally in the country.
US District Judge John Coughenour in Seattle has scheduled a hearing involving lawyers from the Trump administration, four states suing to stop the order, and an immigrant rights organization, which is challenging it on behalf of a proposed class of expectant parents.
The latest proceeding comes just a day after a Maryland federal judge issued a nationwide pause in a separate but similar case involving immigrants’ rights groups and pregnant women whose soon-to-born children could be affected.
Here’s a closer look at where things stand on the president’s birthright citizenship order.
Where do things stand on birthright citizenship?
The president’s executive order seeks to end the automatic grant of citizenship to children born on US soil to parents who are in the country illegally or who are here on a temporary, but lawful, basis such as those on student or tourist visas.
For now, though, it’s on hold. Two weeks ago, Coughenour called the order “blatantly unconstitutional” and issued a 14-day temporary restraining order blocking its implementation. On Wednesday, US District Judge Deborah Boardman followed that up with an injunction keeping it on hold long-term, until the merits of the case are resolved, barring a successful appeal by the Trump administration.
Asked by Boardman if the administration would appeal, an attorney for the administration said he didn’t immediately have the authority to make that decision.
What’s happening in the latest case?
On Thursday, the birthright citizenship issue is back before Coughenour, a Ronald Reagan appointee. During a hearing last month, he said the case stood out in his more than four decades as a federal judge. “I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” he told a Justice Department attorney.
His temporary order blocking the executive action was set to expire Thursday when he’ll hear arguments over whether he should issue an injunction similar to the one issued by the judge in Maryland.
What about the other cases challenging the president’s order?
In total, 22 states, as well as other organizations, have sued to try to stop the executive action.
The matter before the Seattle judge Thursday involves four states: Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington. It also has been consolidated with a lawsuit brought by the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Eighteen states, led by Iowa, have filed a “friend-of-the-court” brief supporting the Trump administration’s position in the case.
Yet another hearing is set for Friday in a Massachusetts court. That case involves a different group of 18 states challenging the order, including New Jersey, which is the lead plaintiff.
What’s at issue here?
At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the infamous Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, which held Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.
The plaintiffs argue the amendment, which holds that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” are indisputably citizens.
The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.
“The Constitution does not harbor a windfall clause granting American citizenship to ... the children of those who have circumvented (or outright defied) federal immigration laws,” the government argued in reply to the Maryland plaintiffs’ suit.
Attorneys for the states have argued that it certainly does — and that has been recognized since the amendment’s adoption, notably in an 1898 US Supreme Court decision. That decision, United States v. Wong Kim Ark, held that the only children who did not automatically receive US citizenship upon being born on US soil were children of diplomats, who have allegiance to another government; enemies present in the US during hostile occupation; those born on foreign ships; and those born to members of sovereign Native American tribes.
The US is among about 30 countries where birthright citizenship — the principle of jus soli or “right of the soil” — is applied. Most are in the Americas, and Canada and Mexico are among them.
Malaysia says forced displacement of Palestinians would be ethnic cleansing

- Muslim-majority Malaysia has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause and has long advocated for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia sees any proposal for the forced displacement of Palestinians as constituting ethnic cleansing and a violation of international law, the foreign ministry said on Thursday after US President Donald Trump proposed a US takeover of Gaza.
“Malaysia strongly opposes any proposal that could lead to the forced displacement or movement of Palestinians from their homeland. Such inhumane actions constitute ethnic cleansing and are clear violations of international law and multiple UN resolutions,” the statement said.
The ministry said it supported a two-state solution as the path to lasting peace and stability.
Muslim-majority Malaysia has been a staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause and has long advocated for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Malaysia does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has said he maintains good relations with the political wing of Palestinian militant group Hamas but has no connection with its military wing.
Neighbouring Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, said late on Wednesday it rejected “any attempt to forcibly displace Palestinians or alter the demographic composition of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Any such action would obstruct a two-state solution being realized, the ministry said, saying Indonesia called on the international community to ensure respect for international law.