About thirty civil parties. This Monday, May 22, the court of La Roche-sur-Yon, in Vendée, is full. Until June 2, the fundamentalist priest of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (without canonical status within the Church) Pierre de Maillard, 56, is on trial for "rape and sexual assault" on 27 minor victims. The trial, scheduled until June 2, is being held behind closed doors.
The victims, sixteen boys and eleven girls, were mostly between twelve and fifteen years old at the time of the events. In particular, the investigation revealed some aggravating circumstances such as "abuse of authority" of the priest - conferred by his function as a clergyman - but also "corruption of minors".
27 victims over 25 years
The facts took place between 1995 and 2020, mainly in the Vendée. The case broke in October 2020, three months after the filing of the first two complaints. The accused has been stationed since 2010 at the priory Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire in Saint-Germain-de-Prinçay, Vendée. As investigations progress, other victims came forward. In total, there were 27 victims over 25 years. "The first facts are committedtwo years after he left the seminary," said Hugues de Lacoste-Lareymondie, the lawyer of 24 victims.
In October 2020, the priest of this community was indicted for "rape by a person in authority, rape of minors under the age of fifteen and sexual assault on minors under the age of fifteen and over the age of fifteen by a person in authority and corruption of minors", and placed in pre-trial detention.
Several children in the same family
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The victims were silent as often in this kind of case" and "suddenly someone decides to speak," says Me de Lacoste-Lareymondie. "It's a shock when the case breaks out, but each victim has been suffering the shockfor 25 years," he said. Some of the rapes and assaults were committed against several children from the same family and in the parents' home.
The Priestly Fraternity of St. Pius X (SSPX) is a civil party. "Pierre de Maillard fooled his superiors," said the lawyer of the SSPX, Me Solange Doumic, believing that the priest "managed to present a face so different from his acts". Before adding that a canonical procedure is underway to reduce Pierre de Maillard to the lay state. The maximum penalty for fundamentalist abbot is twenty years' imprisonment.
Founded in 1970, the SSPX quickly distanced itself from the Holy See, refusing to "follow theneo-modernist and neo-Protestant Rome." The SSPX claims more than 150 priories in 31 countries and nearly 600 priests.