Cardinal Marc Ouellet is the subject of a second sexual misconduct complaint.
• Also read: The alleged victim of M.GR Ouellet comes out of the shadows
This is revealed by the French magazine Golias. The complaint was filed by a woman nicknamed Marie in the fall of 2020, a few months before that of Paméla Groleau.
“The allegation of misconduct against Cardinal Ouellet was reported in the weekly Golias […] was actually reported to the Archbishop of Quebec. As soon as Cardinal Gérald C. Lacroix received this complaint, it was immediately forwarded to Cardinal Ouellet’s immediate superior, Pope Francis,” the Quebec Catholic Church confirmed in writing.
The charges, the nature of which is not specified, allegedly occurred in 2008 and 2009. After a preliminary investigation had been carried out, a letter signed by Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix was sent to the complainant, informing her of the rejection of his complaint inform, in June 2021.
“Pope Francis informed me of his decision not to maintain the charges against the cardinal, since he found no reason to consider the charges after the fact at the expense of Cardinal Ouellet,” we can read in this letter.
The questioned process
As in the case of Paméla Groleau, it would have been Father Jacques Servais, who knew Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who would have led the investigation in this case.
“It’s a preliminary investigation to find out: Are the facts justified? And in this case we again mentioned Father Servais, who is a Jesuit. And it seems he didn’t even talk about it in the first act, he didn’t even meet the alleged victim and report to the Pope,” said religious affairs specialist Alain Pronkin.
Theologian Jean-Guy Nadeau thinks the Vatican should have hired an outside party to conduct the preliminary investigation.
“The investigation must be genuinely clear and the investigator must be a man of experience and there must be no semblance of a conflict of friendship or interest. I think there is a bug here, it seems to me. The Pope requires that there be a bank of experts in every diocese, but I think that in this case we should go for the crème de la crème of experts.
– With information from Zoé Couture, TVA Nouvelles