A retired French archbishop is being investigated following a complaint that he sexually abused a young adult woman in the 1980s.
Emeritus Archbishop Jean-Pierre Grallet of Strasbourg has admitted to making “an inappropriate gesture” to the woman while serving as a Franciscan priest. The precise nature of the complaint has not been revealed.
“At the end of the 1980s, when I was a Franciscan religious, I acted inappropriately toward a young adult woman, behaviour that I deeply regret,” said Archbishop Grallet in a statement.
“From now on, as I await the conclusions of church and civil investigations, I will refrain from speaking in public,” he added.
The Archdiocese of Strasbourg received the allegations against the 81-year-old archbishop in December 2021.
The case was referred to the Strasbourg public prosecutor by Archbishop Luc Ravel of Strasbourg and the Vatican was also notified.
Archbishop Grallet, who retired in 2017, was told about the allegation in the summer of 2022 and said he “immediately wrote” to the woman “to tell her that I had failed her and to ask her forgiveness”.
He said: “I have gone astray and I have hurt a person. The forgiveness that I have asked for, I also express to all those close to her, as well as to all those who, today, will be bruised, under the shock of this revelation.”
At a news conference earlier this month, Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims, president of the bishops’ conference, said 11 bishops or former bishops were under investigation for abuse.
They also include retired Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux who admitted this month that in the 1980s he “behaved in a reprehensible way with a young girl aged 14” while serving as a parish priest.
“My behaviour has inevitably led to grave and lasting consequences for this person,” he said in a statement.
The wave of revelations has followed a report published a year ago which claimed French priests, teachers and lay workers have sexually abused a third of a million children since 1950.
CIASE, a commission set up in 2018 to investigate clerical abuse in the Catholic Church in France, said in its final report that at least 330,000 children were sexually assaulted by up to 3,200 priests and lay workers in the last 70 years.
About 216,000 children – mostly boys between 10 and 13 years – were abused specifically by members of the clergy, the inquiry found.
It also heard evidence from people who testified that nuns also sexually abused boys and girls in their care.
One of the most notorious cases of clerical sex abuse in France involved Bernard Preynat, a laicised priest who in 2020 was sent to jail for five years for abusing boy scouts aged between seven and 14 between 1971 and 1991.
He admitted to the sexual assault of up to two boys nearly every weekend and as many as four or five a week when away camping.
The scandal led to the criminal trial and resignation of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the former Archbishop of Lyon, because he had allowed Preynat to continue to serve as a priest between 2010 and 2015 after learning of the abuse allegations against him.
Cardinal Barbarin said he had been lenient because he had received assurances from Preynat that he had assaulted no-one since 1991.
The cardinal was given a six-month suspended sentence in March 2019 for failing to report the abuse but was cleared of criminal liability on appeal.
Five weeks later Pope Francis accepted the early resignation of the 69-year-old cardinal, which had been submitted voluntarily.
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