Failure to Report Alleged Pedophilia: Retired French Bishop Charged

La Croix
June 12, 2017

https://international.la-croix.com/news/failure-to-report-alleged-pedophilia-retired-french-bishop-charged/5338

Emeritus Bishop Andre Fort of Orleans was charged last Thursday with failing to report pedophile acts allegedly committed by a priest of his diocese in 1993. This comes as a relief for victims of the priest, who was finally charged in 2012 after three successive bishops failed to report him to authorities.

Bishop Andre Fort has been charged for failing to report a case of alleged pedophile molestation. / P. Razzo/CIRIC

e tell me he was aware of the issue but that he even had a file on Fr de C., including letters from parents. He was extremely reassuring, very empathetic, very understanding. He tried to soothe me but nothing happened,” Savignac continued.Ultimately, it was Bishop Jacques Blaquart who referred the matter to legal authorities soon after his arrival in the diocese leading to Fr de C. finally being charged in 2012.After prohibiting Fr de C. from having contact with young people in 2011, Bishop Blaquart finally suspended him from all ministry in 2016, recognizing at the time that he should have done so sooner.Olivier Savignac, who together with another victim, Philippe Cottin, founded the association “Notre parole aussi libere” ("Our word also freed") described the bishop’s attitude as exemplary.In 2014, Bishop Blaquart became the first French bishop to create a welcome center for victims of pedophilia. Last autumn he took the initiative to hold a prayer vigil to seek pardon and reparation for the victims of sexual abuse in the Church.Savignac describes the announcement of the charging of Bishop Fort as a “relief". This was all the more so since the prosecution had lain dormant for four years before being accelerated following the arrival of a new instructing magistrate in 2016.“Nobody helped us,” commented Edmond-Claude Frety, the lawyer for the victims, emphasizing that the latter “are motivated not only by their personal situation but by a desire to end silence on the issue.”Contacted by La Croix, Bishop Fort’s lawyer simply took note of the decision of instructing magistrate’s office. It is not the first time that Bishop Fort’s name has appeared in a matter of this nature.In March, Mediapart revealed that while he was bishop of Perpignan, he had previously failed to report a pedophile priest.Alerted by parents, he merely suggested to the priest involved, Fr Francis Braem, that he should turn himself in before transferring him to the Diocese of Montpellier. Fr Braem was finally found guilty in 2001 after a complaint from the mother of a victim.Following the charging of Bishop Fort on Thursday, the French Bishop Conference refused to make any comment beyond a short statement published on Friday via Twitter.The statement emphasized “the importance of the presumption of innocence” and the conference’s “confidence in the justice system of our country, its desire to cooperate with it and its deep desire to welcome, listen to and accompany the victims".