BORDEAUX (FRANCE)
La Croix International [France]
September 28, 2023
By Héloïse de Neuville
Vatican bans Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard from public ministry for five years, except in his diocese of residence, after civil court dismisses “aggravated sexual assault” charges due to statute of limitations
The Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has permanently banned retired Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard from all public ministry because of sex abuse for a renewable period of five years. But the sentence, which was handed down sometime in late spring allows the 79-year-old former archbishop of Bordeaux to minister in the French Diocese of Digne where he currently resides.
Two sources confirmed to La Croix that Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline in Marseille, the archdiocese where Ricard was born and ordained to the priesthood, was the one who informed Ricard of the sanctions. The sources confirmed that the DDF initiated a canonical trial against Ricard after he confessed in November 2022 to inappropriate sexual behavior with a teenage girl decades ago.
“Intelligent enough to understand that he needs to keep a low profile”
In concrete terms, this means that Ricard remains a cardinal and a priest, but no longer has the right to exercise his priestly ministry to the faithful: to publicly celebrate Mass or confer the sacraments (baptism, confession, etc.). Cardinal Ricard will only be able to celebrate Mass privately, alone or in the presence of one other person.
However, and this is far from insignificant, the Roman sentence provides for a broad exception, since it does apply in Digne Diocese where the cardinal is now living in retirement. Officials in the archdiocese of Marseille said Ricard can continue to exercise public ministry in Digne – a suffragan diocese of Marseille – if he has the permission of its local ordinary, Bishop Emmanuel Gobilliard.
“Cardinal Ricard lives in total seclusion, and is intelligent enough to understand that he needs to keep a low profile,” said Cardinal Aveline, while declining La Croix’s request to comment on the DDF’s decision. “I don’t agree that Cardinal Ricard should celebrate in the diocese of Digne for the time being, and I’ve told him so,” Bishop Gobilliard told La Croix. “I want the sanction to be applied here too,” he said. “But if tomorrow he moves to another diocese and obtains the bishop’s agreement to resume service, I won’t be able to stop him, because the exception provided for in the Roman sentence applies to the cardinal’s diocese of residence, not to the Church of Digne,” said the 55-year-old bishop.
Cardinal Ricard told La Croix he wants to follow through on what has been asked of him, “rather than comment on it”, and does not wish to “stir up or fuel any controversy”.
The French judicial investigation invested the cardinal over “aggravated sexual assault” charges, but closed the case last February due to the statute of limitations. The Church’s sanction comes after a resounding scandal that marked the plenary assembly of French Bishops’ Conference (CEF) in November 2022.
During the gathering, CEF president Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort read a letter the cardinal had addressed to all the bishops. In it Ricard confessed to having “behaved in a reprehensible manner with a 14-year-old girl” when he was parish priest in Marseille more than 35 years earlier. “My behavior inevitably caused this person serious and lasting consequences,” the cardinal added.
A confession that was anything but spontaneous
There was nothing spontaneous about his confession. In fact, he knew he was under pressure from the imminent opening of a judicial inquiry. The Diocese of Digne had, in fact, reported the matter to the judicial authorities in late October after having received information from the victim’s parents a few months earlier.
The family chose to speak out 35 years after the events because they could not bear the fact that the cardinal, then aged 77 and already retired, agreed to the Vatican’s request to temporarily take over the governance of a scandal-marred lay community called Foyers de Charité. It seemed incomprehensible to them that he should be put in charge of reviving a community that was the object of numerous accusations of sexual and spiritual abuse.
“Given Cardinal Ricard’s past, when the victim learned from the press of his appointment to head the Foyers de Charité, she was extremely shocked,” said Dominican Sister Véronique Margron, president of the Conference of Men and Women Religious of France (CORREF). “The trauma from everything she experienced with Cardinal Ricard is extremely strong and was very violent,” she said.
In fact, before accepting this difficult and high-profile mission, the cardinal – who got his red hat in 2006 from Benedict XVI – had been leading a discreet and secluded life. Since 2019 he’s been helping out in Digne, a rural diocese that has only 27 active priests. He joined a parish that was being led by a priest from Cameroon.
Cardinal Ricard turned 79 this past Tuesday, which means he does not lose the right to participate in a conclave for the election of a new pope until September 26, 2024. He also remains a member of the Dicastery for the Promotion of Christian Unity. However, he is no longer a member of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which is responsible for the most serious cases of pedocriminality.
Ricard’s victim first reported the cardinal’s actions to Sister Margron back in February 2022. She then immediately alerted Archbishop de Moulins-Beaufort.
The CEF president, who had a year earlier endorsed the devastating findings of France’s Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE), tried to convince the victim to lodge a complaint. He also asked Ricard to resign from leading Foyers de Charité, which the cardinal did – just a month after accepting his new responsibilities –, citing failing health.
“Unfortunately, the health problems I had experienced and thought I had overcome have re-emerged since my appointment,” he wrote in a press release.
Retired Bishop Michel Dubost, who was to have carried out this mission under his authority, replaced him at short notice. “He also told me he was leaving for health reasons. I felt embarrassed, but it didn’t get any more explicit than that between us,” recalls the bishop emeritus of Évry.
A successful Church career after the incidents
A child of the Marseille bourgeoisie, Jean-Pierre Ricard was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Marseille in 1968, and spent the first twenty years of his ministry in the city of his birth. He became pastor of the parish where the abuse occurred in 1981, serving there until 1988 when he was appointed vicar general of the diocese.
He allegedly assaulted the daughter of a couple of friends in 1987. The parents knew nothing about it at the time. Ricard, who had remained close to the family, even performed the marriage for the girl he had assaulted years earlier.
He went on to enjoy a successful career in the Church, first as auxiliary bishop of Grenoble in 1993 and then as bishop of Montpellier in 1996. He was appointed archbishop of Bordeaux in 2001 and elected that same year to the first of two consecutive terms as CEF president.
Pope John Paul II appointed him to the “Ecclesia Dei” Commission in 2002, making him a member of the (now defunct) Vatican office that was tasked with facilitating communion between members of the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX, also known as the Lefebvrists) and the Roman Catholic Church.
Read more at: https://international.la-croix.com/news/religion/banned-from-public-ministry-french-cardinal-could-still-vote-in-conclave/18410