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	French Priest Admits Child Abuse ABC News April 2, 2010 http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/02/2863465.htm?section=world A French Catholic priest has admitted sexually assaulting a minor and sees his arrest as a "deliverance" after years of private torment, his lawyer said. Father Jacques Gaimard, director of a Christian radio station in the northern region of Upper Normandy, was charged on Wednesday with sexual assaults on a minor in 1992 and 1993 and released on bail. "He is everything but a paedophile," lawyer Pierre Houppe said of Gaimard, whose arrest was announced by the archbishop of Rouen. "He is a brilliant man, with a direct gaze and honest handshake." The priest has been "in repentance for a long time" and, when he was finally charged this week, "he considered this a form of deliverance," he added. In a related case, a parish priest, Father Philippe Richir, was interviewed under caution on suspicion of possessing paedophile pornography, the Rouen state prosecutor's office said. France has not seen the sort of large-scale paedophile scandals that have rocked the Irish, German and US churches, but there have been some cases and the archbishop of Rouen was quick to confirm the latest charges. "My first thought is for the victims, who had to build their life and character while their suffering was hidden for many years," Archbishop Jean-Charles Descubes said. Both men have been suspended pending the results of investigations by French police and by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the body formerly known as the Inquisition. Gaimard's lawyer said his client had personally informed the archbishop of the allegations before he was arrested on Monday. Local priests were shocked and reacted with "deathly silence" when Descubes gathered them in private at Rouen Cathedral on Thursday and announced the news, a source who was present at the gathering said. Last week, French Catholic bishops expressed "shame and regret" over child sex abuse by priests but complained that paedophilia accusations were being used in a slanderous campaign to attack the pope. Pope Benedict XVI was formerly - while still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and has been accused of failing to act against several suspected predatory priests. Child abuse scandals involving Roman Catholic priests have engulfed the church of Europe and the United States, drawing in the Vatican for harsh criticism over its handling of the affairs. The leader of Germany's Roman Catholic bishops, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, said in a special message to mark Good Friday that the day must "mark a new departure which we so badly need." The abuse cases fill the hearts of Catholics with "pain, fear, and shame," he said.
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