Barriers to the disclosure of child sexual abuse within the French Roman Catholic Church

BACKGROUND: Childhood sexual abuse is a major public health problem and is often associated with long delays in disclosure. The disclosure process is influenced by psychological, family, social and institutional factors. Obstacles to disclosure in contexts of intra-familial sexual abuse have been widely studied, whereas obstacles specific to parafamilial religious environments. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to analyze the obstacles to the disclosure of child sexual abuse in ecclesial contexts, based on the testimonies of victims of sexual abuse in the French Roman Catholic Church during childhood. METHODS: A thematic qualitative analysis was carried out based on 23 oral testimonies made publicly available by the CIASE. The testimonies were collected by multidisciplinary teams and analyzed inductively using NVivo software, following a process of open coding, thematic grouping, and interpretative synthesis. RESULTS: The study revealed several interrelated domains of barriers to disclosure, including institutional and cultural, psychological, memory-related, and familial barriers.. The narratives highlight the role of sacred religious authority, institutional silence and restrictive social norms in maintaining silence. Psychological obstacles include guilt, shame, confusion and forms of emotional or spiritual ambivalence. Memory processes are characterized by fragmentation, distancing and delayed reinterpretation. Family relationships, particularly parental trust in religious figures, loyalty conflicts and feelings of indirect parental complicity, also reinforce the lack of disclosure. CONCLUSION: The disclosure of sexual violence in the ecclesiastical context seems to be shaped by multi-level obstacles, extending beyond the individual level. These findings underline the need for a deeper understanding of clinical and institutional mechanisms that take into account the familial, relational and institutional contexts in which victims live and in which disclosure occurs, in order to better support victims and their relatives.