Between 2015 and 2020, five complaints were filed against an abbot of Moselle for abuse of weakness against a vulnerable person. Profile of the plaintiffs: elderly, widowed and relatively wealthy parishioners. The complaints were dismissed but a lawyer revived the case.
Between 2015 and 2020, five complaints were filed against an abbot practicing in Moselle-Est by parishioners, their families or the supervisory body responsible for caring for them. They are all dismissed by the Sarreguemines public prosecutor’s office (Moselle).
“A dismissal of the prosecution does not mean the end of the criminal investigation“, explains lawyer Thomas Hellenbrand, who requested the re-examination of several complaints for abuse of weaknesses against elderly parishioners, filed in recent years against a priest still in office but initially dismissed.
“My client is a lady of a certain age” continues the Metz lawyer, “she expresses herself with all the seriousness and all the disapproval she can have with regard to the behavior she considers guilty of a man of the Church. She believes that he committed an abuse of weakness“.
The attorney general of Metz, François Pérain, told AFP this Sunday, November 12, 2023, to always be “awaiting additional explanations from the Sarreguemines prosecutor“, to whom it counts”request the consolidation of all procedures“concerning the man of the Church for”make an overall point“.
“Obviously, everyone, whatever their position, benefits from the presumption of innocence.” adds Thomas Hellenbrand, “now, it seems to me that for their part, the clerical authorities should also be careful and not expose believers to the potential misdeeds of a member of the Church“. Because Abbot D. was installed as the new priest at the Saint-André du Sablon church in Metz last September, keeping himself “to evoke the bad reputation that has preceded him for ten years, even if it struggles to leave the walls of the Church. However, some parishes have already officially opposed his arrival“, reports The Parisian.
What worries me is that this man of the Church has never been excluded from the faithful despite these accusations
Thomas Hellenbrand avocat
“What worries me is that this man of the Church has never been excluded from the faithful despite these accusations. As always in the Church, once they are part of the seraglio, they are kept” asks Thomas Hellenbrand, “for the person I represent, I had alerted the bishopric. I was roughly told: “of course of course”, “but we did what was necessary” when in fact, we were entrusting a new parish to the person concerned. This ambiguity seemed particularly shocking to me“.
One of the complaints filed in February 2020 for abuse of weakness against a parishioner was the subject of a request for review this summer from the Metz attorney general. Me Thomas Hellenbrand also referred this matter to the National Canonical Criminal Tribunal in Paris.
Questioned, the bishopric of Metz confirms having “became aware of two complaints“, making it possible to initiate in August 2019 a “canonical preliminary investigation“. “But for lack of sufficient and characterized elements, no canonical process followed“, specifies the bishopric.
However, the Church had been informed of the situation much earlier, through a letter sent in January 2016 to the bishop of Metz at the time, Mgr Lagleize, to denounce the attitude of the priest.
“He came into our family like a guru“, wrote the son of a parishioner, evoking how the priest had, for example, acquired bare ownership of a chalet in 2014 by forging signatures, taking advantage of the victim’s vulnerability, or had been given 10,000 euros in liquid.
Questioned about these complaints, the abbot did not wish to speak since “nothing at all has been proven“, according to him. (With AFP)
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