A retired French cardinal has offered to hand himself into the police after he admitted to abusing a 14-year-old girl nearly four decades ago.
Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, who stepped down as Archbishop of Bordeaux in 2019, issued a statement confessing his guilt and expressing regret for the harm he had done to the victim.
He said: “Thirty-five years ago, when I was a parish priest, I behaved in a reprehensible way with a young girl aged 14.
“My behaviour has inevitably led to grave and lasting consequences for this person.”
According to Reuters news agency, the cardinal said he would withdraw from any remaining functions in the church and make himself available to statutory and ecclesiastical authorities.
“I renew here my request for forgiveness and also ask her entire family for forgiveness,” he said, adding that he had spoken to the victim about the abuse.
The announcement was made on behalf of Cardinal Ricard by Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort of Rheims, president of the French bishops’ conference.
He said that in total, 11 bishops or former bishops, including former Bishop Michel Santier in Creteil, near Paris, are under investigation for similar alleged offences.
Archbishop Moulins-Beaufort read out the statement of Cardinal Ricard during a press conference on Monday.
According to Catholic News Agency, the archbishop said that charges have been filed with the attorney general and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in response to Cardinal Ricard’s confession.
Cardinal Ricard, 78, served as Archbishop of Bordeaux from 2001 to 2019 when he turned 75 and reached the mandatory retirement age.
He was created a cardinal in 2006 by Pope Benedict and served on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the Congregation for Catholic Education.
He was also a member of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, the Pontifical Council for Culture, and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
Cardinal Ricard took part in the conclave of 2013 that elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis.
The present Archbishop of Bordeaux, Jean-Paul James, said: “I express my deepest sympathy to the victim concerned and I share the pain of all those, especially in the Diocese of Bordeaux, who are hurt.”
The revelations come a year after a bombshell report claimed French priests, teachers and lay workers sexually abused a third of a million children since 1950.
A report by 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.
(Photo from YouTube / KTOTV screenshot via Catholic News Agency)
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