SSPX priest indicted on charges of rape, torture
April 11, 2014
A priest of the Society of St. Pius X has been indicted and jailed on charges of rape and torture, according to French media reports.
The Society, which is not in full communion with the Holy See, was founded by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated in 1988 after consecrating bishops without a papal mandate.
Le Parisien, one of France's leading newspapers, reported that the unnamed priest, who is 40 years old, was director of one of the Society's schools, Notre-Dame de la Sablonnière, when he asked a teacher who said she was a sexual abuse victim to undergo an exorcism during which he reportedly mimicked the acts by which she was abused.
After this alleged 2010 incident, he subjected two other teachers to similar actions.
According to the newspaper, the Society convicted the priest in a canonical trial and sent him to a convent for two years.
When taken into custody on April 7 and questioned, the priest asserted that the women had consented to his actions and that he was merely mimicking acts rather than committing them.
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Further information:
- • Yvelines : un prêtre intégriste écroué pour viols sur trois enseignantes (Le Parisien)?
- Priest charged with rape, torture during exorcisms (AFP)?
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