Updated 10/24/23 at 5:38 p.m.
A new affair within the Church. A 31-year-old priest from Charente was indicted for sexual assault on a minor under 15 years old, we learned this Tuesday from the Versailles public prosecutor’s office and the diocese of Angoulême, which suspended him from all functions. The indictment, pronounced on Friday, was accompanied by judicial review.
The facts occurred between July 1, 2021 and August 5, 2023, “to the detriment of a single victim, a boy aged between 9 and 11 years old at the time of the facts, one of the children of a family whose mis in question was close,” declared the prosecution. Some of these events took place in Yvelines, where the victim’s family resides. Investigations are continuing to check if there are other victims, the prosecution said.
“Dismay” and “sadness” of the bishop
Entering the seminary in 2015 in Bordeaux, the future priest then joined the Paris seminary, before becoming an educator in a boys’ school integrating musical training in Liesse-Notre-Dame (Aisne), then continuing his journey in Guinea Conakry in 2022, according to the daily Free Charente. In 2023, the accused was ordained priest in Angoulême and appointed vicar in Ruffec, in the north of Charente.
“I immediately took canonical precautionary measures while awaiting the end of the procedure, both civil and canonical, by withdrawing (him) from all priestly ministry,” declared in a press release Monsignor Hervé Gosselin, Bishop of Angoulême, expressing his “dismay” and “sadness”.
“I first want to think of the young person who testified and the ordeal he faced. I want to tell him my prayer, my support and my compassion. I also think of his family and understand his anger,” added the prelate, assuring “the full cooperation of the diocese with the judicial institution.”
In June, in another case of sexual assault alleged against a now deceased priest, Monsignor Gosselin denied having been informed of it during the lifetime of the religious, whom he had succeeded at the head of a community in Brittany.
#priest #indicted #Charente #sexual #assault #minor
