To everyone’s surprise, the president of the Conference of Bishops of France Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, who held a press briefing on the subject of sexual abuse and its management on the eve of the closing of the plenary assembly of the CEF in Lourdes, read a message sent by Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard.
“35 years ago, when I was parish priest, I behaved in a reprehensible way with a 14-year-old girl. My behavior necessarily caused serious and lasting consequences for this person,” wrote the cardinal.
“I have decided to put myself at the disposal of justice both in terms of society and that of the Church”, he added, claiming to have asked “pardon” to this victim, still according to his remarks reported.
This admission by Cardinal Ricard, 78, who was notably bishop of Coutances, Montpellier then Bordeaux from 2001 to 2019, and who retired in October 2019, was greeted “like a shock” by the 120 bishops gathered in the Marian city since Thursday, underlined the president of the CEF. Bishop Ricard has been a cardinal since 2006.
The president of the CEF also detailed the case of other prelates who had to deal with justice.
“Today there are six cases of (former, editor’s note) bishops who have been implicated before the justice of our country or before canonical justice”, he declared, stressing that these cases were “known ” of the press. One of them, however, has since “deceased”, the CEF later indicated to the press, specifying that it was Pierre Pican, who died in 2018, sentenced for non-denunciation.
Added “now Bishop Ricard”, he said. As well as Bishop Michel Santier, sanctioned in 2021 by the Vatican authorities for “spiritual abuse having led to voyeurism on two adult men” and whose sanction was revealed in mid-October by the press.
Two other retired bishops “are the subject of investigations today by the justice of our country after reports made by a bishop and a canonical procedure”.
A last “is the subject of a report to the prosecutor to which no response has been given to date and has received from the Holy See restrictive measures from his ministry”, added the Archbishop of Reims.
In total, ten former bishops are therefore concerned: “eight currently implicated for abuse, including Bishop Ricard and Santier, and two implicated for non-denunciation (one was sentenced in 2018 and one released in 2020)”, according to the THIS F.
– “Insufficiencies” and “dysfunctions” –
On the Santier affair itself, whose silence on the sanction shocked Catholics, Bishop de Moulins-Beaufort admitted having been “informed of (his) situation”, as “president of the Conference of Bishops”, but clarified that the CEF was not “a party to the procedure”.
He also acknowledged that in “November 2021, during the” autumn assembly of the episcopate, he had informed the bishops “that disciplinary measures had been taken against Bishop Santier, but without giving any indication of the facts. which he had committed”.
In the end, he admitted “on rereading this story”, “serious shortcomings and dysfunctions at all levels (which) appear clearly”. In particular, he regretted that a request for a “prior investigation” requested by the Vatican authorities from the then Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit, in May 2020, had not been carried out.
In a press release on Monday, the Archbishop of Bordeaux Jean-Paul James, returning to Cardinal Ricard’s revelations, expressed his “great compassion for the victim concerned”. And said to share “the pain of all those, in particular in the diocese of Bordeaux, who will be hurt by these revelations”.
These intervene a little more than a year after the publication of the shock report of the Sauvé commission on the extent of pedocrime in the Church of France since 1950. At its conclusion, the episcopate had in particular recognized its “responsibility institutional” in this violence.
