Catholic priests in France will be required to wear traffic-light coded identity tags, allowing the public to check whether they have been charged with se**al abuse.
The scheme, launched by the French Bishops’ Conference, will make it easier to identify priests qualified to lead mass and hear confessions.
Cards will include a QR code that can be scanned with a mobile phone and will display a red, orange, or green light depending on whether the holder has been stripped of clerical status.
However, it also tries to safeguard worshippers from se**al abuse, an issue that was exacerbated in November by reports that 11 retired or serving French bishops had been accused of abuse or had neglected to report incidents.
When the public scans one of the new cards, they will see either a red light, an amber light, or a green light.
Red lights signify that a priest’s status has been revoked and that he or she is no longer able to conduct different clerical obligations. Orange lights signify that a priest’s powers are limited owing to experience or punishments.
Green lights signify that a priest is authorised to administer all sacraments.
The method is intended to supplement current paper papers used by the Catholic Church in France in its efforts to combat se* abuse within its ranks.
Within the French Catholic Church, 11 bishops were accused of sexual abuse or cover-up in November 2022.
Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, the former Archbishop of Bordeaux, was among those facing criminal or canonical charges. He admits to having ‘acted in a terrible manner against a 14-year-old girl’ while he was a priest more than three decades ago.
An independent report issued on 4 October 2021, following a two-and-a-half year inquiry, found a long history of abuse inside the church, estimated 330,000 victims of abuse over a 70-year span.
