An independent investigating commission has defended its report on sexual abuse in the French Catholic Church, responding to critics who said the report lacked “scientific rigor.”

The commission insisted that its estimate—that over 300,000 young people had been abused by clerics—was accurate. That estimate was based on a sample of about 28,000 people who responded to a survey. The Academie Catholic de France, in its critique of the report, said that the estimate was indefensibly high, and faulted the methodology of the study.