Jean-Pierre Ricard created stupor by confessing. The revelation of a new sexual assault scandal in the Catholic Church continues to send shock waves. Justice opened an investigation while the bishops announced in Lourdes a measure of assistance in the management of affairs. Figure of the Church of France, Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard confessed, via a message read Monday by the president of the episcopate to the plenary assembly of Lourdes, to have had, when he was parish priest in Marseilles there is 35 years old, “reprehensible conduct with a 14-year-old girl”.
The Marseille public prosecutor’s office ordered a preliminary investigation for “aggravated sexual assault in order to first verify the exact nature of the facts denounced as well as their dating and to hear all the people who received confidences as well as the person who would have them been a victim”. According to Marseille justice, the bishop of Nice André Marceau – now retired – was seized of the cardinal’s case in February. It is his successor Jean-Philippe Nault who retrieves the file on his arrival in March and who makes a report to justice on October 24. According to the prosecution, Mgr Ricard would have confided to having “kissed” the teenager.
“Shocking of many faithful”
In Lourdes, the president of the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF), indicated that he had also been made aware of this affair in February, but denied any concealment of the information. Eric de Moulins-Beaufort assured that he had “continuous work” with the victim, leading to the confession of the prelate, he told the press after the plenary assembly of his institution. “I would like all of us who have been guilty of acts” of this kind “to come to light for themselves,” he said.
“We are aware that these revelations painfully affect the victims,” the bishops wrote in a pastoral letter, also saying that they understood “the shock of many of the faithful”. They still said they heard “the amazement”, “the anger” in particular “aroused” by this affair as well as that of Michel Santier.
This former bishop of Créteil was sanctioned in 2021 by the Vatican authorities for “spiritual abuse having led to voyeurism” on two adults in the 1990s. The silence surrounding his sanction has provoked strong anger in recent weeks. Catholics and groups of victims.