Still struggling to come to terms with their share of responsibility in the clerical sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church, France's bishops have agreed to award financial compensation to victims whose cases fall outside of the country's statute of limitations, reports NBC News.
"We have agreed in principle to make a financial gesture," Vincent Neymon, head of communications for the French bishops' conference, told Associated Press. He said he hoped to have a system for paying victims in place in less than a year.
France has not been immune to the scandal that has prompted a credibility crisis for the Catholic hierarchy, and that is the topic of a summit at the Vatican this week on preventing sex abuse and prosecuting pedophile priests.
Two years ago, an investigation by online publication Mediapart unearthed 342 cases of abuse over 50 years that French bishops were accused of covering up in France and abroad, involving at least 34 priests. Some were convicted, most were at least investigated. But some escaped punishment because the statute of limitations on sex crimes against minors, which was recently extended from 20 to 30 years after a victim turns 18, had run out.
France's conference of bishops said that over the past two years, 211 people have reported being victims of abuse — almost as many as the 222 for the six previous years. Of the more recent cases, the bishops said 75 have been reported to French prosecutors and 10 clergy members have been charged. It's unclear how many cases exceed the statute of limitations, but Neymon said 43 took place before 2000.
"The French church is poor, and we have to watch every penny."
François Devaux, from the French victims' group La Parole Libérée, or Liberated Word, said the church's resistance to awarding money to victims stems in part from its reluctance to admit a collective guilt.
See more of this AP report, with video, published by NBC News.