After a report from the diocese of Paris, a preliminary investigation targeting former archbishop Michel Aupetit was opened in early December for sexual assault on a vulnerable person, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Tuesday, January 3, confirming information from BFMTV.

The investigations were entrusted to the Brigade for the Suppression of Delinquency against Persons (BRDP), according to the prosecution.

According to BFMTV, the former archbishop would have maintained an affair with a vulnerable person subject to a judicial protection measure.

"Mails exchanges"

It is, according to a source familiar with the matter, "exchanges of emails" between the religious and this woman, whose apparent consent will have to be confirmed with regard to her mental health.

“We have absolutely no knowledge of a complaint, so we cannot give any indication on this subject”, declared to AFP Me Jean Reinhart, lawyer for Michel Aupetit.

At the end of November 2021, Mgr Aupetit presented his resignation to Pope Francis, who immediately accepted it, after several newspapers had lent him a romantic relationship with a woman, which he had categorically denied.

Michel Aupetit was also challenged for his management of human resources in the diocese.

Entering the priesthood late – he was ordained at the age of 44 after having practiced medicine for 11 years – Bishop Aupetit had been at the head of the archdiocese of Paris since December 2017.

Before that, he had exercised various ministries as vicar and parish priest, chaplain to young people, had been auxiliary bishop of Paris in 2013, then had inherited a diocese by right, that of Nanterre for a little more than three years.

The archbishop, who had to manage the Notre-Dame-de-Paris fire in 2019, is known for his strict positions on the family and bioethics.

In particular, he regularly supported the "marches for life" hostile to the voluntary termination of pregnancy.

He also had trouble with homosexuals in 2012 during the debates on "marriage for all".

Some have also criticized him for his relative silence on the issue of child crime, after the shock wave created by the publication in early October 2021 of the report of the commission chaired by Jean-Marc Sauvé, which showed the extent of the phenomenon in the world. Catholic Church in France since the 1950s.

With AFP

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