a priest indicted and imprisoned for raping a 15-year-old minor

A priest was indicted and imprisoned for raping a 15-year-old minor in Paris, learned this Thursday franceinfo from the prosecution, confirming information from our colleagues at RTL. The alleged facts date back to the night of November 3 to 4. The suspect was remanded in custody. The investigation is entrusted to the brigade for the protection of minors of the Paris judicial police.

According to the prosecution, he is a 51-year-old priest who officiated in Montfort-sur-Meu within the diocese of Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine). He was indicted on Sunday for counts of “aggravated rape”, “provocation of a minor to use narcotics”, “endangering others” and “illicit use of narcotics”. The aggravated nature of rape comes from the fact that a substance has been “administered to the victim, without his knowledge, in order to alter his discernment and the control of his actions”says the prosecution.

According to a source close to the case, the priest admits having had a sexual relationship with the 15-year-old teenager, but claims not to have been aware of his age. The fifty-year-old priest and the teenager met on an application before meeting in a hotel in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. After using drugs, they ended up having sex. Reports qualified as “brutal” by the victim, specifies this source.

The young person claimed on the online application to be of legal age, which he also said in front of the priest when he met him. The investigators blame the priest for not having been more vigilant because the victim’s appearance clearly left no doubt that he was a minor. For his part, the priest – who did not present himself as such at the meeting with the teenager – admits having regularly this kind of practice and giving appointments to adults to take drugs and have sex.

A new case within the Church which comes just a few days after the revelations of the President of the Conference of Bishops of France Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, on the questioning of eleven former bishops, who had to deal with civil justice or the justice of the Church for sexual violence or “non-denunciation”. During a press briefing on Monday, November 7, on the subject of sexual abuse and its management on the eve of the closing of the CEF plenary assembly in Lourdes, Éric de Moulins-Beaufort thus read a message sent by Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, who reveals to have had a conduct “objectionable” 35 years ago with a girl who was then 14 years old. Revelations that come a little over a year after the publication of the Sauvé Commission’s shock report on the extent of pedocrime in the Church of France since 1950.