She was 17 years old at the time of the alleged events.
In Canada, Cardinal Gérald Cyprien Lacroix, close adviser to the pope, is accused of sexual assault.
This accusation is part of a collective action launched in 2022 which targets more than a hundred members of the diocese of Quebec, according to court documents made public Thursday.
Aged 66, the one who has been archbishop of Quebec since 2011 and cardinal since 2014 is also, since last year, one of the nine members of the Council of Cardinals set up by Pope Francis to assist him in the government of the Church, which meets regularly at the Vatican.
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The actions denounced concern touching which was allegedly committed between 1987 and 1988, Alain Arsenault, the victims' lawyer, told AFP.
“Speech is free” today, he said, denouncing attackers who “have been sheltered for a long time”.
He specifies that other victims should join this collective action targeting the diocese of Quebec.
“We are still in shock trying to understand the new developments,” reacted Valérie Roberge-Dion, spokesperson for the archbishop.
Questioned by AFP, the Vatican did not react on Thursday.
The legal process restarted
With these new accusations, the collective action now brings together the testimonies of 147 people claiming to have been “sexually assaulted by more than a hundred priests or members of the staff of the diocese, some of whom had several victims or were part of the senior clergy of Quebec,” according to the lawyers.
“Between 2022 and 2023, negotiations took place in an attempt to resolve the matter amicably.
However, the parties failed to reach an agreement, which ended the negotiations.
The judicial process is therefore relaunched, hence the present steps,” they add.
Among the ecclesiastics targeted by accusations of sexual assault since the start of the collective action: Cardinal Marc Ouellet, who until 2023 occupied one of the most important positions within the Curia, the central administration of the Holy See.
The latter has always “firmly” denied these “defamatory” accusations, saying he is ready to participate in a trial to prove “his innocence”.
Sexual violence within the Church
Since the election of Pope Francis in 2013, other cardinals have been embroiled in accusations of sexual assault.
At the end of 2022, French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, former archbishop of Bordeaux, admitted to having engaged in “reprehensible” behavior with a teenage girl 35 years ago.
The French justice investigation into “aggravated sexual assault” was dismissed due to the statute of limitations on the facts, but a Vatican investigation continues.
In 2019, Pope Francis defrocked the former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, an almost unprecedented sanction in the history of the Church concerning a cardinal.
The Vatican found him guilty of sexually assaulting at least one 16-year-old boy in 1974, and of having engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior towards adult seminarians.
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The fight against sexual violence in the Church constitutes one of the projects of the pontificate of Francis, who defends a policy of “zero tolerance” in the face of the multiplication of scandals.
The Argentine pope notably created an advisory commission for the protection of minors, lifted pontifical secrecy on sexual violence by the clergy and obliged religious and laity to report any case to their hierarchy.
But the secrecy of the confession remains absolute and victims' associations are demanding more measures.