The figure was slipped into a confidential Sunday newspaper as if there were reason to be satisfied. At the start of this summer, six victims of sexual abuse in the Church received compensation from the fund for relief and the fight against abuse of minors in the Catholic Church (Selam). Of course, it is absurd to compare this low figure with the 216,000 child victims identified by the Sauvé commission in October 2021. Nevertheless, nine months later, the reparation mechanism put in place by the Conference of Bishops of France seems very slow in view of the electroshock caused and the 6200 testimonies collected.
However, the money is there: Selam has 20 million euros to fulfill its mission. The blockages are elsewhere. To process the requests, the Church has, in fact, decided to set up an independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation (Inirr), chaired by Marie Derain de Vaucresson, jurist and former defender of children. At the beginning of July, it had received 893 requests, but only 25 of them had been the subject of a decision and ten had been sent to the Selam fund for actual payment.
Since its beginnings in mid-January, the Inirr has come up against recruitment and organizational difficulties. Indeed, once they have contacted the body, each victim is assigned a referent (psychologist, lawyer, etc.) who will process their file, in particular by collecting their wishes in terms of reparation (financial or not? Others desired gestures?…). However, these referents are extremely difficult to find. Even today, there are not enough of them, only 135 victims have one. Result, the Inirr hesitates to communicate on its action for fear of not being able to absorb the requests.
Second difficulty, the calculation of compensation. In its first months of existence, the Inirr had to draw up a grid making it possible to model the amounts on the damage suffered. She decided to combine three factors: the seriousness of the acts of sexual abuse, the seriousness of the Church’s failings and the seriousness of the consequences on health. The whole forming a scale with no minimum sum, but with a ceiling set at 60,000 euros. If the victims do not dispute the amounts envisaged, some of them regret, on the other hand, the methods of calculation: why is an “attempt” of abuse not taken into account when it can be traumatic? How does the fact that the Church acted when it was alerted minimize the compensation envisaged? The Inirr must reassure, explain, correct certain points.
Listening cells not always up to scratch
At the beginning of June, groups of victims let it be known that they find the delays too long. Even at cruising speed, it takes three to four months between the filing of the application and the decision. The argument put forward several times by Marie de Vaucresson – “We are building something new, it takes time” – is not enough. Among the victims, it clashes with an experience made up of emotions and suffering that the Sauvé commission and the steps taken with the Inirr have awakened, sometimes decades after the facts.
The Inirr is far from being solely responsible for the delays recorded. In recent months, the Church seems less concerned with issues of sexual abuse. A vast movement of reassignment of the bishops is in progress and makes more difficult the identification of permanent interlocutors. In some places, it is the listening cells of the dioceses that are not up to the challenge. Elsewhere, it is the bishops themselves who do not take the subject head-on. However, it is far from having disappeared with the Sauvé commission. Thus, on June 2, in the diocese of Belfort-Montbéliard, a priest was given a three-year suspended prison sentence for sexual assault on a victim under the age of 15. However, to prevent, it is also necessary to show that one grants importance to the past victims. Six compensated in nine months, is that enough to keep consciences awake?