Transferred to court: Priest abused dozens of children

According to the news on the French site 20 Minutes, Maillard, affiliated with the Brotherhood of Saint-Pie X Priest, will appear tomorrow before the judge of the Superior Criminal Court of Vandee at the request of prosecutors.

While hearings are held behind closed doors at the defendant’s request, Maillard will be charged with “sexually abusing nearly 30 children and young people, 11 of whom are girls.”

Following the reflection of 2 criminal complaints against him in the press, the French priest faced many similar criminal complaints. Maillard was subsequently arrested in France in 2020.

It is claimed that there are other children from the same family among the victims of sexual abuse.

ABUSE, “SYSTEMATIC EVENT” IN THE CHURCH

In the report published by the France-based Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in Churches (CIASE) on October 5, it is claimed that 216,000 children have been sexually abused in the country’s churches since 1950.

Adding the cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by employees of private schools and institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church, this figure reaches 330,000, and it was noted that sexual abuse in churches is a “systematic phenomenon.”

The president of CIASE, Jean-Marc Sauve, in his statement, emphasized that the Catholic Church did not take the necessary measures against incidents of sexual abuse and called on this institution to assume its responsibility.

The diocese had accepted the “institutional responsibility of the Catholic Church” in cases of child sexual abuse and that “abuse is a systematic phenomenon in the church.” (AA)