They all knelt before a red cross erected for the occasion at the foot of the Lourdes basilica. It was cold that Saturday in November 2021 in this town in the Pyrénées, which, since the nineteenth century, has become a major pilgrimage destination for Catholics from France and around the world.

Without liturgical vestments, simply dressed in black suits with Roman collars visible, bishops from every diocese in France bowed that day in a symbolic gesture to honor the victims of sexual abuse within the Church. For several days, French prelates, gathered for their semiannual conference, had discussed the systemic nature of these crimes. This was a global first for the Catholic Church.

A month earlier, on October 5, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) had submitted a landmark report to representatives of the Conference of Bishops of France (Conférence des Évêques de France, CEF) and the Conference of Religious Men and Women of France, who had commissioned it.

In this investigation, senior civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé and his team concluded that mass abuse had affected 330,000 people between 1950 and 2020. Most importantly, they pointed out – as the bishops acknowledged – that this was not the result of a few bad apples, but a system that allowed predators to thrive within the Church. "I remember kneeling and thinking, 'But I did nothing, I did nothing.' And then, I understood. I truly understood that we were all responsible," recounted one of them, still moved, five years later. You have 77.1% of this article left to read. The rest is forrs only.