French report: 330,000 victims of church sex abuse

By SYLVIE CORBET
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — A major French report says there have been an estimated 330,000 victims of child sex abuse within France’s Catholic Church over the past 70 years. The president of the commission that issued the report said the estimate, based on scientific research, includes abuses committed by priests and others clerics as well as by non-religious people involved in the church. The report says an estimated 3,000 child abusers — two-thirds of them priests — have worked in the church during that period. The commission worked for 2 1/2 years, listening to victims and witnesses and studying church, court, police and press archives starting from the 1950s.