The Focolare movement in France overlooked the sexual abuse of about 30 minors by a leading member over three decades and failed to take appropriate measures against him, according to an independent report published on 30 March.
The Focolare headquarters in Rome also failed to react to information about the admitted abuser and even helped him pay a fine imposed in 1998 for damages in an abuse case ruled beyond the statute of limitations, concluded the report commissioned by the movement.
“For many years, a chain of officials both in France and in Rome did not act on the situation of JMM,” as the report referred to the abuser, “in a way that would have helped protect victims and prevent further incidents of abuse or attempted abuse.”
Margaret Karram, international head of the Focolare movement, said: “There are no words that can adequately express the shock and pain I feel at the harm that has been done to the children and young people abused by JMM, and not only by him, as is clear from the results of the inquiry. We have failed in vigilance, in listening and in welcoming the call for help from many people. This cannot happen again.”
Focolare is one of the largest “new ecclesial movements” of lay and ordained people in the Church. It was founded in 1943 in Italy by Chiara Lubich.
The report found that JMM, identified in France as the former consecrated lay member Jean-Michel Merlin, had abused boys for decades. The commission got direct testimony from 26 victims and information from 11 others, and suspected “very probably many other” cases.
Merlin, editor of the French branch’s magazine from 1960 to 1990 and then spokesman for the French branch of Caritas International until 2005, was expelled from the Focolare movement in 2016.
In 2020, Bernard Brechet and Claude Goffinet, Focolare’s co-leaders in France, and Western European region head Henri-Louis Roche resigned and a French consulting firm was commissioned to study the abuse issue.
Following recommendations by the French Church, Focolare has referred possible abuse victims to an independent commission established by the Conference of Religious of France to support them.
The conference set up the Commission for Recognition and Reparation in connection with a landmark inquiry that concluded last October that sexual abuse was widespread in the French Church.
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