Intervention de Franziska sur le thème de la pédophilie dans l’Eglise et de l’affaire qui a secoué le diocèse de Lyon. (En Anglais – à partir de 6m19)
Retranscription automatique
Now for more on this i’m joined in the studio by Franziska Harter from a CathoVoice, a media group hello thank you very much indeed for coming in. Now if we just pick up from the end of that report where they mentioned that counseling centers have been set up by the church, what’s your reaction to that it’s about time isn’t it ?
First of all I think we always have to acknowledge the terrible pain of the victims they yeah child abuse is a horrible crime and it’s even more awful if it’s committed by priests who should be a father figure should represent values and God’s love and everything and this children have been betrayed terribly and they need all our compassion and support and attention now and it’s right during long time the church failed to react in an appropriate way and for a long time in too many cases they the church was more was busier with saving its own reputation rather than listening to the victims and punishing strictly the criminals and it took a long time and injured and also in society in general to became aware of the hugeness and the awfulness of this crime and finally it reacted and you know I am a part of a generation in church wants things to change and as the young Catholic I want my church to be a safe environment a place where children can grow and that’s why I’m happy to see that also in France the bishops now start to to adapt strict measures and to really apply the zero tolerance rule which was asked for by Benedict
I was going to ask you about that what have you seen of its application here in France ?
So recently the the French bishops took several measures which all start from the victims I think they really learned to to listen the victims and to to start any approach from this so now in all the dioceses there are support groups for victims there is a mail address an emergency mail address which is supervised 24-7 there’s also a new kind of commission moon of experts who works for prevention and also the bishops promise to put light on all the old cases which haven’t been treated till now
When you say working on prevention what does that involve ?
so working on prevention is about setting safeguarding rules so rules that make that then priests or in any case and youth work they are always about two adults it’s also about talking about this issue in the formation to priesthood whether it which is very important now
Getting back to the Pope he met the Archbishop of Leon recently and he said there was no reason for him to resign not as long as the case hasn’t been resolved he said what do you make of that what message is that sending ?
We have to see that Barbarin is actually one of the bishops and France was the most active again child abuse so cases which emerged in his time as Archbishop he directly reacted and directed in a very strong way the problem of this case is the current cases that actually be cases the the crime has been done 30 years ago so no more clarity is needed and more investigations are needed and Cardinal Barbarin when he became Archbishop II actually he met this priest and yeah he decided to believe in his promise that since nothing happened again and recently in an interview he he also admitted that this might have been a mistake but at the kind of moment I think we can say that he is in order to to push the investigations and in order to give light on all these issues it’s better him to stay because he really tries to to solve this crisis
But do you think that perhaps the laws should be changed because as we saw in the report you’ve only got a certain number of years to make your case shouldn’t it all be changed so that everyone can get justice ?
absolutely and this is actually this is the point where this victim organization the free speech and Cardinal Barbarin have completely the same proposed Cardinal Barbarin also denounces this law which makes that after 20 years you can’t do anything anymore that’s also reason why it is important that church authorities and civil authorities work together because in the church low there isn’t any prescription there isn’t any any prescription because a church they says that the suffering never ends and maybe the guilty can forget but the victims never forget and this is why a church can also sanction after these 20 years
All right thank you very much Franziska Harter for coming in for today’s of focus thank you