FRANCE
La Croix
As part of the French Church’s transparency campaign, the Diocese of Angers has revealed the allegations of two victims of Fr Hyacinthe-Marie Houard, a charismatic, well-known local priest, who died in 2012.
Céline Hoyeau and Gauthier Vaillant
Catholics from Angers in western France are devastated this week following the publication on Tuesday evening of a letter from Bishop Emmanuel Delmas to local priests.
The bishop states that he had received testimonies from two young adult women revealing “that they had been subject during their childhood to inappropriate behavior by a former chaplain, Fr Houard”.
.Hyacinthe-Marie Houard, who died in December 2012 at the age of 85, was an eminent personality in the diocese.
Chaplain and founder of a local Scouts of Europe team, he enjoyed an excellent reputation as an educator and became secretary-general of the Catholic University of Angers. In 1983, he helped found the university’s Institute of Public Relations and Communication (IRCOM).
The two young women who complained to the bishop say that they were sexually abused at the beginning of the years 2000. Each woman made direct contact with the bishop, one during spring 2016 and the other at the end of the year.
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