VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
BishopAccountability.org [Waltham MA]
January 30, 2023
By Anne Barrett Doyle
Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Marc Ouellet from his powerful position as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.
This sudden event occurs less than two weeks after a French Catholic publication revealed that a second woman has accused the cardinal of sexual abuse. The timing is suggestive, and it raises troubling questions about the Pope’s possible complicity.
Now would be a good time for Francis to practice the transparency he recently espoused.
He should account for his seemingly reckless disregard of two women’s allegations. He should also tell us why the cardinal is stepping down now. Was Ouellet subject to a Vos Estis investigation? Is his departure from office a sanction?
For more than 12 years, Ouellet has occupied one of the most powerful and consequential positions in the Curia. Under his watch, several bishops substantively accused of sexual wrongdoing against adults, such as former West Virginia bishop Michael Bransfield and Bishop Francis Mulakkal of India, have been treated leniently. Is Ouellet himself guilty of sexual misconduct or abuse? The Pope owes the faithful information.
Last August, we learned that the Pope had received a letter from one alleged Ouellet victim in January 2021. The writer was the woman who recently identified herself as Paméla Groleau, and she wrote to the Pope at the direction of the Quebec archdiocese.
Two weeks ago, the publication Golias Hebdo revealed that by the time Groleau contacted the Pope, he already knew of another complaint against Ouellet: four months earlier, in September 2020, he had received a report of another woman alleging sexual abuse by the cardinal. Her complaint too was transmitted under the auspices of the Quebec archdiocese. The current archbishop, Cardinal Lacroix, confirms this.
Yet in both cases, the Pope dismissed the women’s claims out of hand, decreeing their allegations not even worthy of full investigation.
On what basis did he decide that both women weren’t credible?
And why did he allow an associate and sometime-collaborator of Ouellet to investigate both allegations?
The investigator, Rev. Jacques Servais, S.J., didn’t even bother interviewing “Marie,” the woman whose allegation was reported to the Pope in September 2020.
The Pope should be candid. This appears to be another instance in his long pattern of not believing victims. Is it?
As Buenos Aires archbishop, he showed the same arrogant dismissiveness toward victims of Rev. Julio César Grassi. As Pope, he famously discredited Chilean victims in 2018, and despite an avowed “conversion,” he has acted similarly in the cases against Argentine bishop Gustavo Zanchetta and Paris archbishop Michel Aupetit.
In last week’s report by AP’s Nicole Winfield on her exchange with Pope Francis about sexual abuse, he affirmed transparency and the need to pay attention to the suffering of adult victims.
Yet he has continued to dismiss the allegations of adult victims behind closed doors.
See our summary of the Ouellet case with links to sources: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/bishops/global-list-of-accused-bishops/#Ouellet
About BishopAccountability.org
Founded in 2003, BishopAccountability.org maintains the world’s largest archive of documents on the problem of clergy sexual abuse, outside the Holy See’s own archives. We conduct research on child abuse by priests and religious and on the management of those cases by bishops and their staffs, superiors of religious orders, and the Holy See. An independent non-profit based in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, BishopAccountability.org is not a victims’ advocacy group and is not affiliated with any church, reform, or victims’ organization.
Contacts for BishopAccountability.org Anne Barrett Doyle, Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org, barrett.doyle@comcast.net
Terence McKiernan, President and Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org, mckiernan1@comcast.net