• The Recognition and Reparation Commission (CRR) is an independent body responsible for allowing victims of pedocrime in Catholic institutions to seek compensation from them.

  • It has established a compensation scale, which is spread over seven levels, ranging from 5,000 euros to 60,000 euros depending on the facts.

  • According to the CRR, this scale, as well as the ceiling, “are not arbitrary but directly inspired by the sums allocated by the French courts in compensation for suffering and attacks on dignity”.

The Recognition and Reparation Commission (CRR), which offers mediation between victims of child crime in Catholic institutions and the latter, has established a scale of reparations.

This is spread over seven levels, ranging from a minimum of 5,000 euros to 60,000 euros, according to a document from the CRR.

In the document signed by its president, Antoine Garapon, the CRR, which began to receive cases and victims in January, details the calculation method used.

She stresses that she wanted to offer “a personalized, but streamlined repair”.

The method “combines an objective description of the violence” – nature of the acts, duration, frequency – “carried out by a member of the CRR”, and “an assessment of the consequences” – the degree of impact of sexual violence on personal life, affective, family, social, professional and spiritual –, “carried out by the victim himself”.

The crossing of these two evaluations “will place the demand on a scale of 1 to 7”.

The repair benchmark ranges from “5,000 euros”, for level 1, to “from 50,000 to 60,000 euros”, for level 7, according to the document.

The highest ceiling in Europe

This is a global “reparation” for attacks on the sexual integrity and dignity of the victim, to the detriment of the search for “compensation for damage, item by item, as the courts do”, stresses the CRR.

Even if this grid, as well as the ceiling, "are not arbitrary but directly inspired by the sums allocated by the French courts in compensation for suffering and attacks on dignity".

The ceiling of 60,000 euros is “the highest of the compensation schemes already implemented in continental Europe”, according to the CRR, which indicates that it is 50,000 euros in Germany or 18,000 euros in Switzerland.

The CRR was born from the decision, in November, of the Conference of religious men and women of France (Corref, institutes and religious congregations) to set up an independent body allowing the victims of predators of these institutes to seek compensation from them.

The CRR does not deal with the payment of reparation but it offers mediation between the victim and the congregation.

No scale yet for Inirr

The document, sent to the institutes at the end of March, is intended to be the working reference during exchanges between victims, congregations and the CRR, with the aim of reaching a “transactional agreement protocol” between the first two.

Another structure exists: the Independent National Authority for Recognition and Reparation (Inirr), which is aimed at victims of priests or lay people in church places other than congregations.

It has not, at this stage, given any indication of a possible scale, but last week its president affirmed, on the question of a ceiling and a floor, “to share work with the CRR”.

"It would be difficult for victims not to have access to the same types of recognition and reparation, at least in the main principles", said Marie Derain de Vaucresson, head of the Inirr.

Company

Child crime in the Church: 526 victims seized the compensation body

Company

Sexual violence in the Church: A listening number set up for the victims

  • Company

  • child crime

  • Church

  • Victim

  • sexual assault

  • Sexual violence

  • Priest