Who is Father Rivoire whom France refuses to extradite to Canada?

• A delegation of Inuits is currently in France to request the extradition of Father Joannes Rivoire, now living in Lyon.

• If the French government rejected their request on Tuesday, his congregation initiated, this Wednesday, “a canonical dismissal procedure”.

• The former missionary is suspected of having sexually assaulted several Inuit children in the 1960s and 1970s, when he was working in the Canadian Far North.

They had come “to implore” the French government to extradite Joannes Rivoire so that he could be tried in Canada.

But France refused, on Tuesday evening, to accede to the request of the Inuit delegation, while ensuring that it was “ready to respond to any request for mutual legal assistance that Canada would formulate”.

The priest, a former missionary of the Catholic Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) who has dual French-Canadian nationality, will not return to the lands of Nunavut, where he is accused of sexual assault on children.

What do we know about the case?

takes stock.

Who is Joannes Rivoire?

Born in 1930 in the Rhône, the priest now lives in an Ehpad perched on the heights of the Croix-Rousse district in Lyon.

This is where he has lived for almost two years, almost reclusive.

At 92, the man prefers to hide in his room and only comes out for meals, reports

who met him last March.

An almost monastic life far removed from that lived in the polar regions.

Ordained a priest at the age of 27, Joannes Rivoire returned to the Oblates and decided to settle in the Canadian Far North.

“It was either that or Africa,” he explains.

In 1960, he put his suitcases down in the territory of Nunavut.

Where he will share the daily life of the Inuit for three decades.

At first, he celebrates mass without understanding a word of what he says, then begins to learn Inuktitut to speak it fluently.

Always dressed in his black cassock and sporting a thick beard, he taught catechism, baptized children, put on the teacher's habit, hunted seals and caribou or acted as a nurse with the equipment sent.

“I helped people as I could,” he explained in an interview with APTN News television channel.

But in 1993, when the tongues were loosened little by little, the religious left the Far North hastily.

The official reason?

“My parents were suffering, they needed me,” he replies to

.

He will never set foot in Canada again.

Instead, he went into exile for twenty years in Goult, at the foot of the Luberon massif.

Welcomed by the Oblates in the Notre-Dame des Lumières sanctuary, the missionary lived peacefully there, enjoying the mild climate.

As protected from all rumours.

And any legal proceedings.

It was not until 2015 that he was transferred to the Oblate house in Strasbourg.

Then in Lyon, in 2021.

What is he accused of?

As early as 1992, the first allegations came to the ears of the Archbishop of Churchill-Hudson Bay.

He receives a letter written by a journalist living in Arviat.

She tells him that she received the confidences of a friend who revealed to her, a few months earlier, that she had been sexually assaulted by Father Rivoire when she was a child.

She alerts him because the name of the priest is circulating and is the subject of other accusations in the village.

But the bishop will never prevent justice.

A priest will nevertheless go there to collect testimonies about the missionary.

But at that time, the person concerned is already far away.

Marius Tungilik, Inuit leader, was the first to break the silence, in 1991. He claims to have been assaulted by the missionary at the age of 12 in 1970. He will take 23 years to file a complaint and will also be the first to do it.

Two brothers will follow.

The investigation carried out at the time retains the charges of "sexual assault" and "indecent actions".

But the police will never be able to question the priest.

The man has already flown to take refuge in France.

In 1998, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) issued an arrest warrant against the religious for the assaults committed in the 1960s and 1970s on the three Inuit children.

A sword in the water.

For twenty years, it will remain a dead letter.

Hiding in Provence, the missionary calls in sick, assuring that the RCMP has never summoned him.

And did not seek, either, to get in touch with him.

So much so that Canada lifted the arrest warrant in 2017. As for the Canadian Public Prosecution Service, it therefore suspended the charges, considering that France would never agree to extradite one of its nationals.

However, a request to this effect has never been officially made by Canada.

It will take September 2021 for the case to be revived.

Another victim, a woman, filed a complaint 47 years after the facts she says she suffered.

In turn, she breaks the silence, recounting the abuse suffered from the age of 6.

“He was waiting for the end of the mass to caress me.

He was masturbating, ”she confides to Le

.

Terrorized, the little girl does not flinch.

“During this time, he was showing me a picture of the devil and saying to me: 'If you do anything, you will go to hell'”, she recalls.

On March 29, 2022, Canadian justice then issued a new arrest warrant against the missionary and asked France to be able to extradite him.

Will he be brought to justice?

In 2022, representatives of the Inuit community went to Pope Francis to ask him to intercede and convince Joannes Rivoire to return to Canada.

His congregation also ordered him to go to the Far North.

But the latter, nicknamed "the priest of the devil" by the Inuit, categorically refuses.

He has always denied "having touched a child".

"I spent thirty years there but we don't talk about anything other than that," he laments to APTN.

And to insist: “If people don't believe me, I can't help it, but I'm not aware of having done anything serious.

From now on, he indicates that he is preparing "to cross over to the other side".

Today, no allegation brought against the Oblate could be proven.

His congregation, which claims to have been aware of these accusations only in 2013, announced on Wednesday that it was starting “a canonical dismissal procedure”.

“Father Rivoire stubbornly refuses to obey our order and present himself to Canadian justice”, argues Father Gruber, provincial of the Oblates of France.

What are the chances today of seeing the former missionary brought to justice?

Can he be judged, moreover, in France?

"Victims can file a complaint, can be heard, but there will be no possible prosecution because of the limitation periods", answers AFP Nadia Debbache, the lawyer who advises the delegation, specifying that he " is extremely important that the extradition request be successful".

France having refused, Tuesday evening, the possibility of a trial is now almost nil.

This Wednesday, the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) announced "started a procedure of canonical dismissal [...] because Father Rivoire disobeyed our order to present himself to Canadian justice", announced to the urges Father Vincent Gruber.

World

Canada: Pope asks for "pardon for the evil" done to indigenous peoples

Company

Child crime: Launch of a group on abuse of power in the Church

• Company

• child crime

• Church

• Priest

• Religion

• sexual assault

• Canada

• Lyons

• Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes