Voting at the bi-annual Conference of French Bishops (CEF) in the southern city of Lourdes, a large majority of the 120 bishops approved the payments to those who had suffered abuse within the Church. They would prioritise paying victims of abuse where the offences happened too long ago to be prosecuted. On Saturday, another victim of abuse, Olivier Savignac, objected that the bishops had not waited for the findings of the independent commission. In May, Pope Francis passed a landmark new measure obliging anyone in the Church who knew about sex abuse to report it to their superiors. A few months earlier, a French cardinal, Philippe Barbarin, received a six-month suspended jail sentence for failing to report sex abuse by a priest under his authority.

Source: The Local November 09, 2019 20:12 UTC