Cardinal says he abused girl, 14, when he was priest in France

JEAN-PIERRE RICARD, a French cardinal, confessed yesterday to behaving in a “reprehensible way” with a 14-yearold girl when he was a priest three decades ago and said he would be stepping down from his role to retreat and “pray”.

Cardinal Ricard is one of 11 bishops and former bishops who are being investigated over allegations of sexual abuse, it was announced at the annual Bishops’ Conference of France in Lourdes, south-western France.

Eric de Moulins-beaufort, Archbishop of Reims and president of the conference, read Cardinal Ricard’s confession to journalists at a press conference yesterday, in which the former bishop of Bordeaux, who was made cardinal by Pope Francis in 2016, asked for forgiveness. “Thirty-five years ago, when I was a parish priest, I behaved in a reprehensible way with a young girl aged 14. My behaviour has inevitably led to grave and lasting consequences for this person,” the Archbishop read.

Among the 11 accused is Michel Santier, a former bishop in the Parisian suburb of Créteil who had already been sanctioned last year by the Vatican for “spiritual abuse having led to voyeurism on two adult men” in the 1990s.

Since Thursday, 120 members of the Bishops’ Conference of France had been meeting behind closed doors to work on “concrete proposals” to improve transparency when clerics are implicated in sexual abuse cases. But the Archbishop admitted that Cardinal Ricard’s confession was a last-minute surprise. He said: “This admission... was yesterday received by us bishops as a shock. In this painful time in which we find ourselves, it helps that the truth is being brought to light.”

Last year, an independent inquiry published a report that found that 216,000 minors had been sexually abused by French clergy over the past 70 years. That figure rose to 330,000 for cases involving lay members of the Church.

The 11 accused face prosecution or disciplinary measures from the Church.