Cardinal Marc Ouellet came out of his silence to deny outright the allegations of sexual assault against him, which he considers “defamatory”.
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“Having learned of the false accusations made against me by the complainant (F.), I firmly deny having made inappropriate gestures on her person,” Bishop Ouellet said Friday in a statement published on the Vatican news site.
The latter says he considers the dissemination of these allegations of sexual assault, which were revealed at the beginning of the week as defamatory, as part of a class action against the diocese of Quebec.
“If a civil investigation were to be opened, I intend to participate actively so that the truth is established and my innocence recognized”, indicated the cardinal.
A reaction that was predictable for the lawyer Alain Arsenault, responsible for the file, who persists and signs. “We are not surprised that he decided to deny everything, he has the right. But the reality is very different,” he says, questioned by The newspaper.
“No skills”
Marc Ouellet, 78 years old and current prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, allegedly inappropriately touched an intern named F. between 2008 and 2010, when he was archbishop of Quebec.
- Listen to Gilles Proulx’s column at the microphone of Marc-André Leclerc on QUB radio:
In a letter sent to the pope in January 2021 and of which The newspaper obtained a copy, the complainant claims to have been fondled near the buttocks, kissed intrusively and received inappropriate comments from the cardinal.
The Holy Father, however, decided to exclude a canonical investigation of Bishop Ouellet on Thursday, based on elements gathered by Father Jacques Servais, mandated to clarify the matter following the receipt of this missive.
“He is a friend of Bishop Ouellet who had no competence to carry out such an investigation, he himself admitted it to Mrs. F. It is obvious that it was not valid”, supports Me Arsenault.
“And he submitted his report a year and a half later. It shows once again that they hoped that Mrs. F., as a good Christian, would forget all that, ”he continues.
The diocese in hot water
The revelations come less than three weeks after a visit by Pope Francis to the country, during which he apologized for assaults by members of the Church at residential schools for Indigenous people.
Last February, Marc Ouellet had himself deplored the “drama of sexual assaults committed by clerics” and “criminal behavior concealed for too long to protect the institution”, during an important symposium at the Vatican in the presence of Pope Francis.
Remember that the collective action in question in this case targets all sexual assaults allegedly committed by representatives of the Diocese of Quebec since 1940.
Nearly 80 members of the clergy, who allegedly caused more than a hundred victims – often minors – are targeted by these allegations.
– With the collaboration of AFP
Full statement of Cardinal Marc Ouellet
“Having learned of the false accusations made against me by the complainant (F.), I firmly deny having made inappropriate gestures on her person and I consider the interpretation and dissemination of these allegations as sexual assaults to be defamatory. »
“If a civil investigation were to be opened, I intend to participate actively so that the truth is established and my innocence recognized. »
Extracts from the letter of the Complainant forwarded to the Pope
“Each time Monsignor was present, I had the right to hugs with caresses from the back. This excessive familiarity made me so uncomfortable that I dreaded these events. »
“It was the second time that week that I saw him. He said something like, “But we’ve seen each other twice this week! But I can kiss you again. There’s no harm in indulging a little.” I remember very clearly that he used these words: spoil himself. The only words that came to mind were: no I’m not your treat. »
“That time he kissed me with his hand that slid down my back and stopped just where the back meets the buttocks. The gray area of the back… the one that is too close to the buttocks to be touched by a stranger and even less by his boss, but not low enough to be the buttocks and that we can speak of touching. Borderline… still borderline. I understood that day, even more than any other day, that I had to run away from him as much as possible. I was worried, I was an intern. My pastoral mandate depended on him and my professional future. »