After the revelation of the affair on Thursday, Canadian Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, close advisor to the pope, “categorically denied” the accusations of sexual assault against him on Friday. “Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix has just announced to his main collaborators that he is temporarily withdrawing from his activities until the situation is clarified,” indicated the diocese of Quebec. “He categorically denies the allegations against him since yesterday, which he considers unfounded,” it is specified.
Aged 66, the man who has been archbishop of Quebec since 2011 and cardinal since 2014 is accused of “touching” by a minor at the time of the facts, as part of a collective action which targets more than a hundred members of the diocese of Quebec. Launched in 2022, this collective action now brings together the testimonies of 147 people saying they had been “sexually assaulted by more than a hundred priests or members of staff of the diocese, some of whom had several victims or were part of the senior clergy of Quebec,” according to the victims’ lawyers.
Since last year, Gérald Cyprien Lacroix has been one of the nine members of the Council of Cardinals set up by Pope Francis to assist him in the government of the Church, which meets regularly at the Vatican.