It is an aftershock of an earthquake that continues to shake the Church. On Tuesday, Cardinal Ricard admitted to having behaved “reprehensibly” towards a teenager. A preliminary investigation has been opened by the Marseille prosecutor’s office for “aggravated sexual assault”. At the origin of this new revelation is a woman: Véronique Margron. In February 2022, it was she who received a call from the cardinal’s alleged victim.
Justice and the Church evoke a “kiss” on a 14-year-old girl, thirty-five years ago. But for the president of the Conference of Religious of France, it is “very possible (…) that the author of the facts, Jean-Pierre Ricard, minimizes” what happened. This declaration, pronounced on France Inter on Tuesday, is not surprising for the nun.
At the heart of the Recognition and Redress Commission
Born in Dakar in 1967 and arrived in France as a child, Véronique Margron has been provincial prioress of the Dominican Sisters of Charity of the Presentation since 2014 and a moral theologian. This sexagenarian speaks out regularly when the Church is marred by scandals of sexual abuse. In mid-October, Sister Margron said she was “appalled” after revelations about the former bishop of Créteil sanctioned by the Vatican for voyeurism.
The nun has been involved for two years in raising the awareness of the 450 French congregations (30,000 monks, nuns, brothers and sisters of the Church) to “restorative justice”. It has set up a Commission for Recognition and Reparation (CRR), responsible for mediating between victims and religious institutes and setting possible financial reparations.
A woman “impressive” by “her empathy”
The creation of the CRR was one of the recommendations of the report by Jean-Marc Sauvé which revealed in October the extent of pedocrime in the Catholic Church for seventy years. Out of 400 cases under its jurisdiction, “at least 15 victims were paid by religious congregations”, 4 of which relate to the 50,000-60,000 euro tranche, according to figures dating from the beginning of October. “She is impressive by her ability to listen, her availability, her empathy”, says Jean-Marc Sauvé in the newspaper The world.
The spokesperson for Catholics in France has always been sensitive to child protection. In 1981, before entering orders, she passed the competition for the judicial protection of youth and then worked for six years as an educator with young delinquents. Re-elected as head of the Conference of Religious of France in 2021, Véronique Margron has gradually established herself as the face of empathy for the Catholic Church.
“We will continue to fight”
When other religious leaders slipped up, like the President of the Conference of Bishops of France, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, who had considered that the secrecy of confession was “stronger than the laws of the Republic”, the nun weighs her words. And focuses his word on the victims. After the revelations about Cardinal Ricard, “the feeling of betrayal is intense”, confided Véronique Margron to the religious weekly Life.
“Jean-Pierre Ricard was twice president of the Conference of Bishops of France, cardinal, elector of the pope… But how could he accept these charges? (…) For us, it’s very hard. But it will always be less hard than for the victims, ”said the nun. Despite her feeling of being faced with a “tsunami”, Véronique Margron assures her: “we will leave, we will continue to fight”. A titanic fight while the Catholic Church remains the institution where sexual violence against minors is the most frequent after the family.