But recent revelations of sexual misconduct by a cardinal and a bishop on Moulins-Beaufort's watch show how complicated, time-consuming and personal stamping out abuse can be.

These new cases, which come a year after a report that estimated that France had seen 330,000 ordained and lay abusers since 1950, have tangled Moulins-Beaufort in a web, caught between falling public confidence in the bishops' ability to solve the problem — which only increases the pressure to act — and a pope who firmly condemns clerical sexual abuse but offers only vague guidance when faced with concrete cases.

The revelations last week, both involving popular and well-respected clerics, were bigger than any cases to date.

Bishop Michel Santier of Créteil, an eastern suburb of Paris, had a reputation as a prelate open to other faiths and to people sidelined in the church. In 2020, he took early retirement, citing health reasons, but it turned out he had admitted to Pope Francis in 2019 that he had made at least two young men do a striptease as part of a confession.

Only after Santier later repeated his admission to his successor did the Vatican impose canonical restrictions on him.

The story finally came out in a Catholic magazine in October, forcing Moulins-Beaufort to acknowledge that he also knew the facts but could not publicize them because the Vatican hadn't.

Three weeks later, Moulins-Beaufort read out a letter from Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, who was twice elected head of the French bishops' conference in the 2000s, confessed that he had "acted in a reprehensible way with a 14-year-old girl" 35 years ago.

When Moulins-Beaufort unveiled the Ricard scandal, it came to light that several church leaders had been informed but had taken months to inform French law enforcement or the Vatican.

Bishop Dominique Blanchet, who took over from Santier, later described how he tried to keep a distance from his popular predecessor without divulging the reason. "I was in an untenable position," he said.

French Catholic leaders initially played down clerical abuse when news of U.S. cases made headlines in The Boston Globe two decades ago, but the issue has now gone far beyond the "few bad apples" stage.

"Neither ordination nor honours protect someone from making mistakes, including some legally serious ones," a worn-down Moulins-Beaufort said at the end of the French bishops' Nov. 3-8 plenary session in Lourdes. "Every person can be haunted by troubled forces that he does not always manage to control."

Yet Santier's and Ricard's cases show that the problem is as much one of transparency as of troubled priests. "Your trust has been betrayed. You feel anger, sadness, amazement. These feelings are legitimate," Rennes Archbishop Pierre d'Ornellas told parishioners in the Breton town of Montfort-sur-Meu.

D'Ornellas chose that parish because its pastor had just been jailed in Paris for yet another sexual abuse case. The Rev. Yannick Poligné, who is HIV-positive, was charged with aggravated rape, drug use and endangering the life of a 15-year-old male he met through the gay app Grindr.

At the news conference unveiling the Ricard scandal, Moulins-Beaufort said the total of French bishops involved in sexual abuse cases was now 11. But he mixed up the cases — for example, including those charged with nondenunciation of an abusive priest with prelates who actually abused victims — and thus created further distrust of the bishops in general.

Three bishops were not named, meaning more revelations may come soon. A church spokesman would only say that two were being investigated by French authorities and the Vatican, while the third had been reported to the French and restricted by the Vatican in his ministry.

The Rev. Hans Zollner, a Catholic expert on sexual abuse based in Rome, said: "The French bishops' conference should communicate names, if this is legally possible. Without this, there is a risk of bringing widespread suspicion to bear on everyone. … This is a rule of communication that we have not yet learned."

"How can we still believe that the church will get out of this, that it has the means to reform itself, when it is so deeply affected itself?" asked Isabelle de Gaulmyn, an editor and former Vatican correspondent for the Catholic daily newspaper La Croix.

"What do we see on the part of this ‘elite,' supposedly chosen carefully by the pope and his advisers? Perversion for some — serious, profound and criminal perversion. And for the others, an incomprehensible laxity that leads to immense helplessness."

• Tom Heneghan is an author at Religion News Service.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Bishop Michel Santier (pictured), was quietly disciplined by the Vatican and, in 2021, he reported to his diocese he resigned for "health reasons".

However, the weekly Famille Chrétienne revealed Santier was also removed for "using his influence over two young adult men for sexual purposes" in the 1990s and abusing the sacrament of confession.

The Vatican ordered him to live "a life of prayer and penance" in an abbey in Normandy.

However, Archbishop Dominique Lebrun, Santier's metropolitan archbishop, announced last week that "other people" have since had come forward with allegations against Santier.

They claim the retired bishop had sexually abused them when they were young adults.

"Yesterday (October 19) after having heard directly from one of these victims, I immediately sent a report to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith via the apostolic nunciature," Lebrun said.

"There is no doubt that the dicastery will conduct a new investigation in the face of revelations that accentuate the seriousness of the facts of which Bishop Michel Santier is accused."

Santier resigned from his post two years earlier than the customary age of 75.

In a letter to his flock in June 2020, he explained that "the polluted air of the Paris region" did not suit him and had led to diagnoses of asthma and sleep apnoea.

He had been hospitalised with COVID-19 in April that year.

"I don't have the physical strength to continue my ministry among you until I am 75 years old", he said at the time. He also hinted he had undergone "other difficulties," but didn't specify what these were.

These difficulties, Catholic magazine Famille Chrétienne reported earlier this month, were linked to the "spiritual abuse for sexual purposes perpetrated against two adult men" in the 1990s.

French bishops confirmed that Rome took "disciplinary action" against Santier in October 2021 for the acts, which emerged in 2019. The two men asked to remain anonymous.

Last Friday, the French bishops' conference president, Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, acknowledged the revelations had provoked "shock" among French Catholics.

"The feeling of betrayal, the temptation to be discouraged are emotions that I understand and that run through us, as well as the incomprehension and anger of many before the acts themselves," he said.

"I also hear and receive the criticisms made about the lack of communication of the Roman measures when they were enacted.

"There can be no impunity in the Church, regardless of the function of the person involved."

Moulins-Beaufort said the French bishops would be reflecting on the way investigation results are communicated to Catholics when they meet at their plenary assembly in Lourdes next week.

"We will bring to Rome the fruit of our reflections and our proposals to improve what can be improved," he said.

French Catholics have learned of a series of abuse scandals in recent years.

The Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) concluded in 2021 that as many as 330,000 children were abused from 1950 to 2020 in the French Catholic Church.

The French bishops then promised to undertake "a vast programme of renewal" of their governance practices.

Source

• The Pillar
• The Tablet