PARIS — An independent commission investigating sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in France since the 1950s said on Tuesday that the abuse was far more pervasive and systemic than previously known, laying out in detail how victims had been repeatedly silenced and how church authorities had failed to report or discipline abusive clergy.
The commission’s highly awaited, 2,500-page report, meticulously compiled over the past three years by independent experts at the request of the Catholic Church in France, was the most extensive account to date of the scope of sexual abuse by clergy in the country, especially against children and vulnerable people.
Since 1950, about 216,000 minors have been abused by clergy members in France and there have been at the very least 2,900 to 3,200 perpetrators of sexual abuse among clergy members, according to an estimate by the commission that…
