3 years after landmark French abuse report, experts still work with survivors, urge vigilance

Three years after a landmark French clerical sexual abuse report was published, a member of the commission that released it told OSV News the testimonies he heard had a great impact on him and that he remains in touch with those affected, helping them move forward.

Stéphane de Navacelle, 44, a lawyer and member of the New York and Paris bars, was appointed member of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church, known as CIASE for its French acronym, in 2019. The commission was set up by the French bishops' conference and the Conference of Religious of France. Chaired by senior civil servant Jean-Marc Sauvé, CIASE submitted its conclusions in Paris on Oct. 5, 2021, after an almost three-year investigation.

The report estimated that 330,000 children in France had been sexually abused since 1950 and provided the country’s first accounting of the crisis. According to Sauvé, Catholic authorities covered up the abuse for decades in a "systemic manner" in France.

Navacelle interviewed some 40 victims for CIASE and was deeply moved by the testimonies he heard from adults talking about their destroyed childhoods. "Child abuse is a violation of the commandment 'You shall not kill,'" he told OSV News. "The victims we have heard are dead children in the bodies of living adults."

Three years on, his mission is not completed, Navacelle said. He treats his duties as ongoing to help the church in the long run and still supports victims within the Recognition and Reparation Commission, which was set up in November 2021 by the church, following CIASE's report.

It accompanies hundreds of religious men and women who have suffered abuse within religious institutes. "We help them to verbalize what they have experienced, to address their hierarchy, to take any steps likely to help them move forward," Navacelle explained.

"Furthermore, their testimonies are invaluable in helping to put measures in place to ensure this does not happen again," he added.

Navacelle focuses especially on the cases of the community of the Brothers of St. John. Founded in 1975, it quickly flourished in France in the 1980s and 1990s. By the 2000s, there were over 500 brothers, many of them priests, in addition to religious sisters.

But in 2013, revelations about the abusive behavior of its founder, French Dominican Father Marie-Dominique Philippe, who died in 2006, stunned the French Catholic world.

According to a 2023 report issued by Brothers of St. John, Father Philippe in 40 years had set up a system of widespread domination that had led to sectarian aberrations and a considerable number of sexual abuses. Many members had inflicted on others the same abuses they themselves had suffered. The 800-page report published by the community mentioned 72 abusers who had acted between 1975 and 2022, which constitutes over 8% of the brothers in the community.

Navacelle accompanied a dozen of the community's members over the past two years.

“This is one of the most difficult cases in France," he said. "The percentage (of abuse) is considerably higher than in other communities. And rectifying the situation is much more complicated. The basic principles of this community need to be overhauled."

Navacelle pointed to the mechanisms that enabled large-scale abuse in the community.

"The recruitment of brothers and nuns had been to a large extent in well-off circles, in which young people had a certain immaturity, because they had grown up in ultra-protected environments," Navacelle explained. "This young community aroused enthusiasm, but no serious discernment was exercised. There was no solid basis for detecting the vulnerabilities of some of them. The idea was that the Holy Spirit was at work. It was a very irresponsible approach."

Therefore, the expert pointed out, "many fragile young people were thus given a pseudo-theological education centered on 'the friendship love’ as conceived by Philippe."

"But it was a distorted education," Navacelle said. “They were taught about God's love, and then manipulated toward sexual intercourse."

Today, Navacelle is convinced that the community's leaders have undertaken appropriate introspection to identify the sources of abuse. Risk monitoring remains an ongoing effort -- which for him is also a wider lesson in safeguarding.

"A distinction needs to be made between the charisma of the founder, who was a pervert and had a harmful influence, and the charisma of the foundation itself, which, surprisingly, gave rise to many fine vocations and even produced some positive fruit," Navacelle said.

Talking about a community poisoned by abuse, Navacelle said a caring approach is needed. "We have to accompany its members so that each of them can regain real freedom. To do this, they must be given administrative and financial support, so that those who wish to are truly able to leave the community, after all these traumatic revelations. In this way, those who choose to stay can truly do so in complete freedom," he said.

"This accompaniment did not leave me unscathed," Navacelle told OSV News. "In the spring of 2023, I was so upset by all the horrors I was hearing that my wife became worried. I realized that I had to ease off a little so as not to unbalance my own family," he said, pointing to the heavy burden those listening to abuse stories also experience.

For Navacelle, fighting the abuse crisis is a team effort in any country. In France, he is working with Sister Véronique Margron on the follow-up to all the testimonies gathered by CIASE.

A Dominican sister and president of the Conference of Religious of France, she is at the forefront of the fight against abuse. "She is doing remarkable work to establish the solid conditions of true freedom for the religious, so that they remain profoundly free when they commit themselves to the vow of obedience that characterizes religious life," Navacelle explained.

"We are studying the possibility of creating a structure of specific consultants who, at the request of an order or community, could help church members in this area."

"We are working for the church of 2050," Navacelle concluded. "Abuses have always existed, and always will. But today, everyone is much more aware of the dramatic consequences they have on victims' lives. This enables us to set up barriers. A great deal of work has been done. We need to keep up the vigilance, otherwise it will happen again."