A testimony, then a second has arrived in the mailbox of the Reims prosecutor's office in recent days.
They implicate a priest who allegedly raged in the 1990s in the Marne.
The Reims prosecutor announced on Monday the opening of an investigation for sexual assault on minors after the revelations of two former scouts denouncing abuses committed in the late 1990s by the same priest chaplain.
"The first investigations began on Monday," said the prosecutor, Matthieu Bourrette, at a press conference.
This investigation, carried out by the judicial police, follows an email on October 21 - also addressed to the Archbishop of Reims and to the newspaper L'Union - from a former scout in his forties denouncing touching in 1999 from a priest chaplain.
"He explained that his approach resulted in particular from the fact that he had learned that this priest was still active," said the prosecutor.
The same day, the prosecution received the testimony of a second complainant in his forties, also by e-mail, affirming "that he had been the victim of the same priest on several occasions between 1996 and 1999", according to the prosecutor.
"No details were given on the nature of the facts denounced" he adds.
"I requested that the plaintiffs be heard as quickly as possible in order to be able to appreciate the exact nature of the facts, their frequency", explains Matthieu Bourrette, who evokes "a complex case" requiring "the greatest caution".
Did the archbishop and prosecutor at the time know?
"These elements should allow me to qualify the facts as well as possible and to verify" whether or not they "should be prescribed", he adds.
"I would not be surprised if there are other plaintiffs," said the Reims prosecutor.
“Other victims are ready to be heard.
"
Then the prosecution had to defend itself against accusations of inaction in the late 1990s and early 2000s. "My prosecution and I were not notified of these facts for the first time until October 21, 2021" , answers Matthieu Bourrette.
Read alsoSexual abuse of minors in the Church: these priests who will never "betray" the secret of confession
When contacted, the Archbishop of Reims, Mgr de Moulins-Beaufort, however affirmed in a press release that in January 2000, "the parents of a scout" had entered into contact with Mgr Jordan, the archbishop at the time, who had telephoned "the next day to the Attorney General near the Court of Appeal of Reims".
According to him, the Attorney General then recommended to prohibit the priest concerned from any ministry with young people.
The archdiocese ensures that protective measures had been taken in 1999 against this priest.
He has also been suspended “from all public sacramental celebration” and “no longer has any pastoral mission” since 2019.
This new investigation comes a few days after the publication of the Sauvé report on child crime in the Catholic Church, estimating at 216,000 the number of children and adolescents victims of clerics and religious since 1950.
