The holiday season has not been kind to the battered French Church. In the latest embarrassment, the Paris prosecutor has opened a preliminary inquiry into “sexual aggression against a vulnerable person” by the city’s former archbishop, Michel Aupetit.
The step was triggered by the archdiocese, which reported its suspicion. It stressed in a statement that it could not prove the charge and had not specified sexual aggression to the prosecutor.
BFMTV said Aupetit, who resigned in December 2021 amid reports of harsh management and an affair with a women that he denied, had exchanged emails with another woman whose mental health was in doubt.
Pope Francis told journalists he quickly accepted Aupetit’s surprise resignation letter because the archbishop’s reputation had been ruined by the reports and he could no longer lead the archdiocese.
Aupetit’s lawyer, Jean Reinhart, told French radio that the former archbishop was “extremely surprised” and only learned of the inquiry through the media.
“This complaint is pointless and will go nowhere,” he said.
The inquiry brought the former archbishop back into headlines that in recent weeks included reports of another retired bishop being disciplined by the Vatican, a burnt-out bishop taking six months to rest, the Pope defrocking a defiant monk and a former cleric headed toward a civil trial for raping a minor.
These cases emerged last month after troubled Church leaders revealed in November that 11 French bishops had been convicted, indicted or credibly suspected of committing or condoning sexual abuse.
Former Cayenne Bishop Emmanuel Lafont was barred from public ministry and ordered to live in a monastery in France by the Vatican after a canonical inquiry, La Croix reported, citing several sources.
The unpublicised charges apparently involved sexual relations with two men and moral harassment of a woman in French Guiana, it said.
The prelate still faces a civil investigation in Cayenne for aggravated human trafficking, aid to illegal residence and aggravated breach of trust. Lafont has disputed all charges.
In Nevers in central France, Bishop Thierry Brac de la Perrière stepped aside for six months, saying he needed a rest from the office he has held for 11 years. He denied having any other reasons for his sabbatical.
Pope Francis laicised Jean-Claude Mercier, a self-proclaimed monk in an unofficial abbey in south-west France. He faces a civil inquiry into charges of raping minors.
“Mr Mercier has not received a mission from the Catholic Church … for at least 45 years and can in no way represent it. He is no longer a member of it,” Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes and Lourdes said in a mid-December announcement at the end of a canonical inquiry.
The abbey in Tarasteix was private and “the Catholic faithful should not go there”, the bishop added.
In Orléans, the appeals court confirmed in mid-December that former cleric Olivier de Scitivaux must face trial on charges of raping a boy. Three others, now adults, have brought rape charges against him, but their cases were legally outdated. Scitivaux quit the priesthood in 2021.
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