It is an exceptional documentary dedicated to pedophilia within the Church that TF1 is to broadcast Sunday. In Pedophilia in the Church, the end of the omerta , Maud Gangler, of the CAPA agency, is interested in children, who become adults, decide to take the floor to denounce the pedophile acts committed by priests or religious . A release of speech allowed by the news of recent years, during which business has multiplied. "The Barbarin case has changed everything," says Maud Gangler at the microphone of Europe 1.
However, to get to collect these accounts of victims, often upsetting, the journalist had, during the nine months that was required for his investigation, to build trust with his interlocutors. "Even if the victims want to talk, it's still taboo, it's still very painful," she explains to Europe 1. "We do not address the subject of pedophilia in the Church as another subject". For her investigation, Maud Gangler spent a lot of time off camera, going to meet the subjects of her documentary and "see if they would agree to speak.We do not put the camera under the nose of adult victims or children. time".
Commissioned by TF1, the investigation must be broadcast in the Grands reportsages box , just after the 13 hours presented by Anne-Claire Coudray. A strategic slice watched on average by 3,400,000 viewers each week. An important exhibition, which pleased Maud Gangler. "It has a very important pedagogical virtue, it is a box watched by families," she notes. "It's important that parents and grandparents see this to talk about pedophilia in the church, but also in general." "In addition, she concludes, many people have not yet talked about what happened to them."
"The victims have been locked in silence for decades"
In many cases, the Church has been weakened by revelations around Cardinal Barbarin, sentenced in first instance to six months in prison suspended for not denouncing the actions of one of his priests, Father Preynat . "The Barbarin affair has changed everything," says Maud Gangler, "the victims I spoke with were locked in silence for decades, and hearing the liberated Word triggered something of extremely strong at home, and all a reverse movement, with the need to speak. "
And in the face of this new inquiry, the Church was first locked in silence. While she wants to film initiatives in some dioceses, "it was very complicated, I had no, closed doors," says Maud Gangler. It was after going through the Bishops' Conference in France that "things really got loose," she says. "They rather accompanied me in the process".