The former archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit is targeted by a preliminary investigation for facts of sexual assault on a vulnerable person, said Tuesday, January 3, at the World the Paris prosecutor’s office, confirming information from BFMTV. This investigation, opened at the end of November 2022 after a report from the diocese of Paris, was entrusted to the brigade for the repression of delinquency against persons (BRDP).
According to a source close to the case, the former archbishop, who is 71, is suspected of having had an affair with an adult woman who is the subject of a judicial protection measure. The initial report of the diocese concerns exchanges of emails between the prelate and this woman suggesting a possible sexual relationship, but neither the woman, who has not lodged a complaint, nor Mr. Aupetit have yet been questioned.
It was the woman’s vulnerability, and not the nature of the supposed sexual intercourse, that motivated the opening of the investigation in order to confirm her apparent consent with regard to her mental health.
“My client learned from the press that a report had been made by the diocese, but the bishopric never questioned him on this point. He is therefore even more surprised to learn that the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation of which he was unaware. Mr. Aupetit does not see who this woman could be either, no one having ever complained of the slightest inappropriate gesture on her part.reacted to the World Jean Reinhart, lawyer for the former Archbishop of Paris.
“Gossip”
This is not the first time that Michel Aupetit has had to face suspicions about his private life. In an article published on November 23, 2021, the magazine Point claimed that the cleric had, when he was vicar general of the diocese of Paris, in 2012, “an intimate relationship” with a consenting woman, who is not the one in the current procedure.
The prelate had denied this connection, recognizing only a behavior “ambiguous, implying the existence of an intimate relationship and sexual intercourse”. The diocese had also at the time admitted “ambiguous behavior” by M. Aupetit, while denying the existence of any ” love relationship “ Where “sexual”. But these rumors finally forced the Archbishop of Paris to submit his resignation to Pope Francis at the end of November 2021.
The pope had accepted it with regret, explaining to the press his decision by the fact that the ecclesiastic could not “no more governing” Due to “gossip” : “When gossip grows, grows, grows and takes away a man’s reputation, he can no longer rule. He lost his reputation not for his sin (…), but because of gossip. A man whose reputation has been harmed in this way publicly can no longer rule. And it is an injustice. This is why I accepted Aupetit’s resignation, not on the altar of truth, but on that of hypocrisy..
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