“The nun made me read the Gospel of the Apostle Paul and took off my underwear”
The testimonies of victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy of the French Catholic Church are terrifying. Eighty percent of the 330,000 children who were attacked were boys between the ages of 10 and 13, but there were also many girls who were abused by priests and nuns, who used crosses to rape little girls or forced boys to have sex with them. .
One of the victims, named Marie, testified that she was abused at the age of 11. When she complained to her parents about it, they refused to believe that a nun could do such a thing. Her abuse continued like this for another year. “I was a real gift for this nun, because she knew very well that she did not risk anything,” said Marie, adding that the nun called her to her office, locked the door, closed the curtains and made her sit at her feet. . “She made me read the Gospel of the Apostle Paul or someone else, while she pressed me with one hand on her chest and took off my underwear with the other. We wore, of course, skirts, not pants. “I was terrified and paralyzed,” he said.
In bed
Olivier Savinia was another victim. He wanted to believe that the priest of his parish was a devoted man. But when he asked her to take off her clothes and lie down on the bed in the summer camp room when she was 13, she realized something was wrong. “I considered him a good man, who would never hurt me. “When I found myself half-naked in that bed, with him touching me, I realized the mistake,” said Savinias, who now leads a group of victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy.
The commission of inquiry states that the Church not only did not take the necessary measures to prevent the abuse, but also closed its eyes, failing to report the abuse and sometimes knowingly bringing the children into contact with the perpetrators. .
