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New ID cards with QR code

For years, the French church has repeatedly been shaken by cases of sexual abuse. Often these are matters that have been kept secret for decades. Now the French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) has decided to become more transparent.

As part of this project, she wants to provide priests, bishops and deacons with ID cards with a scannable QR code, as she announced in early May. This should provide information about the status of the spiritual person after scanning. Three colors are displayed for this.

Basically nothing new

An ID for clergy is nothing new. In the French Catholic Church, the so-called celebrant. This is a paper document certifying the profession of pastor. Until now, it was mainly used when clergymen were traveling and wanted to show another priest, for example, that they were authorized to lead a mass. The problem: The documents were both easy to forge and cumbersome to update.

This is apparent from a shocking report from 2021. The Independent Commission on Abuse in the Church (CIASE) has extrapolated that 216,000 children and young people in France have been victims of sexual abuse since the 1950s. If one includes Church facilities, the number of victims is estimated at 330,000. Such cases had been known within administrative institutions for years, but were covered up.

A month after the publication of this report, the plenary meeting of the French bishops met. They knew they had to change something. This is one of the reasons why they voted for a digital version of the celebrant. This decision was part of a whole package of measures to intensify the fight against sexual violence in the church.

Alexandre Joly, Bishop of Troyes and speaker of the conference, said afterwards:

“Top 3 Stupid Ideas”

The enthusiasm about the new identity card within the church is limited. For example, Christina Pedotti, head of the Christian weekly “Témoignage Chrétien” (“Christian Witness”) France24 pointed out that the new identity cards cannot simply be checked by all churchgoers. This is reserved for priests or lay people in charge of a parish. That way they could verify someone’s legitimacy.

She therefore sees no great advantage in the new ID card:

François Devaux is even more direct. He is the former president of La Parole Libérée (The Word Liberated), an organization founded in 2015 by victims of former Catholic priest and pedophile Bernard Preynat. He told France24 about the new identity cards:

According to him, the church has not understood the criticism. Moreover, the initiative is a far cry from the measures recommended in the Ciase report. He goes on:

One of many solutions

In fact, the digital identity card is not one of the 45 measures proposed in the Ciase report. Pedotti also criticizes that the new map is more about a redistribution of power:

The French Catholic Church, meanwhile, emphasizes that the new instrument is just one of many solutions to combat sexual abuse. For example, Matthieu Rougé, bishop of Nanterre, told radio station RMC that they wanted to make sure they now had a “culture of transparency and good relations with others”.

The French Episcopal Conference promises that all 18,000 priests and deacons in the country will have their QR codes by the end of the year. The bishops have already received it. (Sat)