To those who thought that the crisis of sexual violence in the Church was over, or in the process of being so, each new case serves as a reminder that this is not the case. On Sunday April 16, the Catholic faithful discovered the suspension of his charge of the parish priest of Saint-Germain de Pantin (Seine-Saint-Denis), announced by press releases from the diocese of Paris and the Scouts-Guides de France. Jacques Gagey is accused of sexual assault on young adult women at the time of the facts, which would date back to a period ranging from 1993 to 2002. The priest is the subject of a criminal investigation, indicated, Monday, April 17, the Paris prosecutor’s office, confirming information from The cross.
Also under the influence of a canonical investigation, but also of precautionary measures while waiting for it to be completed, he was, among other things, deprived of his faculties of confession, prohibited from presiding over mass, or even from contacting a presumed victim. . Suspended from his missions in Pantin, he is also obliged to reside in Paris in accommodation made available by the diocese of the capital where he is from, and which he left in September 2022 to join that of Saint-Denis. .
Jacques Gagey was also to inaugurate the church of his parish, Saturday, April 15, reopened after three years of work. His suspension came at the right time, avoiding embarrassing photographs where he would have been seen posing with the bishop of Saint-Denis. If the report to the public prosecutor’s office by the diocese of Paris dates from November 2022, the accusations themselves date back several years.
According to a source familiar with the matter, the first victim appeared in 2018, publishing a testimony on the France Victime platform. A second came directly to the diocese of Paris in 2019, relating facts that would be sexual assault. In 2020, it is another who also made the approach in Paris, when the fourth contacted the Conference of Bishops of France (CEF).
A questionable timeline
Jacques Gagey, who was parish priest in Paris at the time of the events, had returned from Rome in 2021, where he had spent a few years. Former chaplain general of the scouts and guides of France, he was appointed, in 2014, chaplain of the International Catholic Conference of Scouting (CICS) at the Holy See. On his return, he is sent to Pantin in 2022.
A questionable timeline. First, because the transfer takes place even though the facts are known. Then because the report to the prosecution seems to come very late. A possible explanation would be to find on the side of the age of the alleged victims, all adults at the time of the facts. A gap in the consideration by the Church of sexual violence committed within it. Indeed, assaults, especially when they take place in the particular context of a so-called relationship between a cleric and an adult, pose even more of a problem. management at the institution than the violence committed against minors.
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