French cardinal declines public duties after admitting abuse of 14-year-old girl

Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of France said Monday he was stepping down from his duties after he abused a 14-year-old girl decades ago.

“Thirty-five years ago, when I was a parish priest, I behaved reprehensibly towards a fourteen-year-old girl. My behavior inevitably had serious and lasting consequences for this person. ,” Ricard said in a statement.

Ricard asked for forgiveness, declined his duties, and said he could deal with legal and church authorities. From his 2001 he was Bishop of South-West Bordeaux until 2019.

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A total of 11 bishops or former bishops, including the former bishop of Michel Sentier in Créteil, near Paris, are subject to abuse investigations, Eric de Moulin Beaufort, president of the French Bishops Conference, said at a press conference on Monday. Said it was. He read out Ricard’s statement during the event.

These are the latest revelations to hit the Roman Catholic Church, which has been plagued by sexual abuse around the world for the past two decades, often involving children.

In France last year, an independent study found that French clerics had sexually abused more than 200,000 children over the past 70 years, the authors of which said the Catholic Church had turned a blind eye for too long. said.

— Reporting by GV De Clercq and Ingrid Melander, Editing by Angus MacSwan

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