Eleven bishops or former bishops have been accused by French civil justice or ecclesiastical justice of sexual abuse, the president of the French Episcopal Conference (CEF) announced on Monday.
“There are six cases of bishops who have been prosecuted by the justice of our country or by the canonical justice [lei da Igreja católica]”, declared the president of the CEF, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, at a press conference in Lourdes, a region in southwestern France that is home to a major Catholic pilgrimage site.
“Other two, who no longer hold office, were the subject of investigations by the justice system of our country after complaints made by a bishop and a canonical process,” he said, adding that “a third was singled out by the prosecution and received , from the Holy See, restrictive measures to his ministry”.
According to the president of the French Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, former Bishop of Bordeaux, was also investigated, having admitted, in a message read to the press by Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, that he was, 35 years ago , his “reprehensible behavior” with a minor under 14 years of age.
The list also includes Bishop Monsignor (an ecclesiastical title of honor conferred by the Pope) Michel Santier, sanctioned in 2021 by the Vatican authorities for “spiritual abuse that led to the voyeurism of two grown men” in the 1990s and whose silence around his pen has sparked intense protests in recent weeks from Catholics and victims’ groups.
Without going into more detail, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort stressed that there is “a great diversity of situations, acts committed and complaints”.
The 120 members of the Episcopal Conference of France have been meeting in Lourdes since Thursday for their autumn plenary assembly.
The goal is, among other things, to develop “concrete proposals” to improve the communication and transparency of canonical measures taken against clerics involved in cases of sexual abuse.
Source: TSF
