It is this that the bishops of France have chosen to try to repair the irreparable.

Marie Derain de Vaucresson was appointed by the 120 prelates gathered in Lourdes, to be at the head of an “independent national body for recognition and reparation”, in charge of investigating the requests of victims of child crime in the Church and of compensate them.

Since Monday, this fervent Catholic, but also a 52-year-old senior official who has dedicated her entire career as a lawyer to child protection, must translate the penance of the episcopate into concrete acts.

A task that promises to be immense, after the earthquake caused by the report of the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (Ciase), which has identified 330,000 victims sexually abused when they were minors within the institution since 1950.

A career entirely dedicated to children's rights

To support them, Marie Derain de Vaucresson will be able to draw on a career entirely dedicated to children's rights. After having climbed the ranks within the judicial protection of young people since the end of the 1990s, she notably held the position of Children's Defender between 2011 and 2014, under the leadership of the former Defender of Rights Dominique Baudis. She then joined the cabinet of Laurence Rossignol, the former Secretary of State for Family and Children under François Hollande, where she participated in the development of a law to protect children.

"The protection of children through the law is her specialty, but she is not a dry and hard lawyer, she is deeply human, which makes her an ideal person to listen to the victims", confides her friend Claire Brisset, Defender of the children between 2000 and 2006. "Childhood wounds you can carry them all your life, and she is very sensitive to that," she adds.

Former Guides of France

A practicing Catholic, of a "deep faith" according to Claire Brisset, the lawyer knows the intimate flaws of the Church, through her long-standing commitment to the Scouts and Guides of France, of which she was vice-president.

She joined their ranks as a teenager in Burgundy and then sat on an ethics committee of the organization, in particular in charge of questions of sexual violence.

An experience which today makes him a trusted third party between the Catholic hierarchy and the victims.

“Since the Preynat affair in particular, there has not been a month in which I did not receive information from people who were victims in the Church.

If I get involved in this mission, it is first and foremost for them, ”she told the Catholic daily La Croix on Monday.

A "devoted but not docile" woman

“She is a woman with convictions, who never gives up. She will be devoted but not docile, like Jean-Marc Sauvé ”, the senior official who directed the work of the Ciase, estimates Jean-Pierre Rosenczveig, the former president of the Bobigny juvenile court, who has been working alongside her professionally for more. fifteen years old. This retired magistrate notably praises her action as secretary general of the National Council for the Protection of Children, where she "denounced the limits of the Schiappa law of 2018" against sexual violence against minors, which did not automatically consider sexual relations between an adult and a minor under the age of 15 such as rape.

By choosing this official from the General Inspectorate of Justice, "the Church shows that it has heard most of the recommendations of the Sauvé report," said Jean-Pierre Rosenczveig, member of the Ciase.

Appointed on a voluntary basis, Marie Derain de Vaucresson quickly intends to surround herself with lawyers, medical experts specializing in sexual abuse, but also victims.

In Lourdes, the bishops promised that she would have "the means" to carry out her mission, which will probably last several years.

The reparation process must be financed by a fund supplied by the sale of real estate of the Church, or even by borrowing if necessary.

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  • Society

  • Sexual assault

  • Church

  • Child

  • Catholicism

  • Women

  • Minor

  • Compensation

  • Priest