46 Paris Foreign Missions Society priests implicated in abuse investigation

PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International [Montrouge Cedex, France]

December 13, 2024

By Matthieu Lasserre

 

An internal investigation report commissioned by the Paris Foreign Missions Society revealed 63 allegations of sexual violence perpetrated by the congregation’s priests between 1950 and 2024. However, the number is most likely greater.

An internal investigation report commissioned by the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP) yielded an initial yet incomplete assessment of how sexual abuse was addressed within the  missionary organization.

Published December 12 by the MEP, the report was conducted by GCPS Consulting, an independent British firm specializing in safeguarding against sexual abuse. It highlighted the urgent need for concrete measures to prevent sexual violence within the MEP.

Founded in 1658, the Paris Foreign Missions Society is a Catholic organization comprised of priests and laypople dedicated to missionary work abroad. The MEP has primarily evangelized in Asia for nearly four centuries.

The study covered 63 allegations from 1950 to the present, including eight substantiated cases involving 46 priests—representing 3% of the 1,491 priests active in the MEP since 1950. This percentage aligned with findings from the French Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE), which reported similar figures (~2.8%).

However, the auditors examined only 350 files of priests whose names appeared in the MEP’s permanent council minutes. “The total number of allegations recorded over 74 years is low,” the auditors noted, adding, “It is likely that the actual number of sexual violence cases perpetrated by MEP priests is significantly higher.”

A systemic nature of abuse

The audit uncovered a pattern of systemic issues: priests were relocated, incidents downplayed, and the institution protected. The report paints a picture of a culture that enabled abuse without detailing specific cases. In 2023, media outlets, including La Croix, revealed canonical or legal proceedings against four MEP members, including two former superiors who later became bishops: French Bishop Georges Colomb of La Rochelle — in southwestern France — who was suspended following a rape allegation, and former Auxiliary Bishop Gilles Reithinger of Strasbourg, a former MEP superior general who is currently under a canonical investigation for accusations of initiating a priest into a secret sexual lifestyle within the organization. Both bishops have denied the allegations.

While the report stopped short of addressing individual or collective accountability directly, it highlighted a rise in abuse reports during the 2010s and the 1970s. It attributed this trend partly to troubling practices at the MEP’s Paris headquarters, where “ambiguous behaviors” and “dynamics of control and power games” were noted. The report also mentioned testimonies describing certain priests’ actions at the Rue du Bac residence and administration center in Paris as exerting pressure for sexual relationships.

The report criticized a focus among many MEP priests on homosexuality as a root cause of sexual violence, which obscured the role of power dynamics in abuses. Most victims were women (38) compared to men (23). “Sexual orientation overshadowed issues of consent and abuse of power,” the report stated.

Father Vincent Sénéchal, the MEP superior general, rejected claims of a “system” in 2023. Reacting to the findings, he expressed indignation but maintained there was no organized network: “The report doesn’t show evidence of a mastermind orchestrating systematic abuse. It highlights a flawed framework and individual failings.”

 

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