At 93, Father Johannes Rivoire is once again in the sights of justice in Canada.
Police in the country have issued a new arrest warrant for a French priest accused of sexually assaulting Inuit children more than 30 years ago, authorities said on Tuesday.
“In September, the police received a complaint of sexual assault which occurred approximately 47 years ago,” detailed the police of Nunavut, territory of the North of Canada.
And following this investigation, at the end of February the priest "was charged with sexual assault" and an arrest warrant issued.
A call to Pope Francis
On Monday, an Inuit delegation visiting the Vatican to discuss abuses committed in residential schools by members of the church asked Pope Francis to personally intervene in the case.
Inuit representatives said at a press conference that they had asked the sovereign pontiff to press for the priest to be "tried for the wrongs he has caused" in Canada or France.
This French priest, who spent three decades in the Canadian Far North, has already been the subject of an arrest warrant which has never been acted upon.
He left Canada in 1993 and lives in France, in Lyon.
Interviewed recently by the newspaper
Le Monde
, he proclaims his innocence.
Vatican apologies expected
The policy of assimilation implemented by the Canadian authorities vis-à-vis the Amerindian peoples for decades led to numerous abuses, which are recognized today.
The historic meeting this week between the pope and a delegation of the various Canadian indigenous peoples should make it possible to “recognize the responsibility” of the Church in the system of boarding schools for indigenous children.
The discovery of hundreds of unmarked children's graves in recent months has rocked Canada and many survivors are now awaiting an apology from the pope.
Between the end of the 19th century and the 1980s, some 150,000 indigenous children were forcibly recruited into more than 130 boarding schools across the country, where they were cut off from their family, language and culture.
Thousands never returned, with authorities estimating their number at between 4,000 and 6,000.
In 2015, a national commission of inquiry called this system “cultural genocide”.
World
The remains of 215 children found at the site of a former residential school in Canada
World
Demonstration for an independent inquiry in Canada into residential schools
World
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Lyons
Pope Francis
Canada
Mandate
child crime
Vatican
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