French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard of Bordeaux is pictured in a 2013 photo at the Vatican. He has admitted to abusing a 14-year-old girl 35 years ago. (CNS photo/Max Rossi, Reuters)
Rome Newsroom, Nov 7, 2022 / 09:00 am (CNA).
A French cardinal said on Monday that he had abused a 14-year-old girl several decades ago and was making himself available to authorities.
Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard said in a statement: “Thirty-five years ago, when I was a parish priest, I behaved in a reprehensible way with a young girl aged 14. My behavior has inevitably led to grave and lasting consequences for this person.”
Ricard added he was withdrawing from his functions and had spoken to the victim about the abuse.
“I renew here my request for forgiveness and also ask her entire family for forgiveness,” he said.
The statement was read at a press conference by the president of the French bishops’ conference, Archbishop Eric de Moulins-Beaufort of Reims.
The archbishop said that charges had been filed with the attorney general and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in response to Cardinal Ricard’s confession.
The 78-year-old Ricard was bishop of Bordeaux, in the southwest of France, from 2001 to 2019, Reuters reported.
The current archbishop of Bordeaux, Jean-Paul James, said: “I express my deepest sympathy to the victim concerned. And I share the pain of all those, especially in the Diocese of Bordeaux, who are hurt by these revelations.”
According to Moulins-Beaufort, nine French bishops as well as two retired bishops are currently the subject of a civil or Church investigation.
Pope Francis received French President Emmanuel Macron on Oct. 24 at the Vatican.
Before the meeting, a group of victims of sexual abuse urged Macron to directly raise the issue of whether the Church in France was too slow in reacting to a landmark investigation of sexual abuse released one year ago.
According to an independent report published in late 2021, hundreds of thousands of children were abused in the Catholic Church in France between 1950 and 2020.
The French bishops are currently meeting in Lourdes for their fall plenary session.
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A Vatican flag, with the incorrect design likely drawn from Wikipedia, and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. / Bohumil Petrik/ACI
St. Louis, Mo., Apr 8, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
The flag of Vatican City, with its distinctive yellow and white, is instantly recognizable to many Catholics. Likely far fewer people, though, have scrutinized the papal coat of arms on the right-hand side, instead taking the intricate design — which includes famous crossed keys — for granted.
As it turns out, there’s a good chance that the coats of arms on many of the Vatican flags you’ve seen out in the world are rendered incorrectly. And it took until 2023 for the internet to start taking notice.
Imagine you wanted to print your own version of the Vatican flag. Where would you go to find a high-quality picture of one? If you’re like most internet users, your first stop would probably not be the Vatican’s official (but admittedly outdated) vatican.va website. You’re probably going to pull up Wikipedia, one of the world’s most visited websites and an endless storehouse of free image content. Flagmakers the world over appear to have done so over the years.
Imagine many people’s surprise, then, to discover that the image of the “Flag of Vatican City” displayed on Wikipedia has been wrong several times over the years, most recently from 2017 to 2022. (It was also wrong from 2006–2007.)
What is “wrong” about these flags, you might ask? It’s a small detail in the grand scheme of things but easy to spot once you know about it. The erroneous Wikipedia file includes a red disk at the bottom of the papal tiara as well as a different shade of yellow on portions of the coat of arms.
The anonymous Wikipedia editor who changed the look of the flag in 2017 wrote that he or she did so for “color correction” purposes, noting that the Vatican’s coat of arms includes the red at the bottom of the tiara. The only problem? The Vatican’s official flag design renders the coat of arms differently, with the circular bottom of the tiara in white.
The image was reverted to the correct one in 2022, but the damage was done. A casual internet search will turn up dozens of Vatican flags for sale that clearly used the incorrect image downloaded from Wikipedia. The incorrect flag has even made its way into emojis. (This whole situation gained attention last month after a Reddit user made a post about it.)
An inexpensive Vatican flag available for sale on Amazon that makes use of the incorrect Wikipedia flag design. Amazon/Screenshot
Father William Becker, pastor at St. Columbanus Parish in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, read the Reddit post with interest and amusement. Becker, a self-described “flag guy,” has studied the Vatican flag for years and even wrote an entire book about it. He has fond memories of raising the yellow and white colors over his alma mater, the North American College in Rome.
Becker told CNA that the saga of the Vatican flag on Wikipedia demonstrates a need for the Vatican to step in and clarify exactly what its flag should look like, especially considering the fact that Catholic churches all over the world display the Vatican flag.
It was precisely this lack of clarity on the official design of the Vatican flag that led Becker to create a website detailing, as best as he could, the correct design for the flag.
“Cultural communities in general have turned to flags in a stunning way,” Becker commented, citing in part a proliferation of cheaply made, mass-produced flags. And, anecdotally, there seems to be an ever-increasing interest in the Vatican flag as a way for Catholics to claim an identity, whether by flying a flag at home, waving it at a papal event, or by putting one in their social media profile picture.
The Vatican flag. Bohumil Petrik/CNA
Perhaps surprisingly, the Vatican flag is less than 100 years old, as is Vatican City itself. For more than a millennium before 1870, the pope ruled over the Papal States, large regions mainly within present-day Italy. After the Vatican lost control of the Papal States, it found itself a tiny island surrounded by an acrimonious Italy. It took nearly 60 years until the ratification of the Lateran Accords of 1929 ushered in harmony between the Vatican and Italy, and the creation of the world’s smallest sovereign country.
In the days of the Papal States, many different flags were used, but the yellow and white color scheme was a common feature. Becker said the modern design was first used by the merchant fleet in the Papal States from 1825 to 1870. In 1929, that design was chosen as the new flag of Vatican City, the sovereign country.
“It took a while in 1929 to get some flags made. The techniques of mass production weren’t available yet, and so it would have been a matter of sewing up some flags and fitting out buildings with flag staffs,” Becker noted, saying that during this time and for years afterward there was quite a bit of variation between the Vatican flags people flew, perhaps even more so than today.
“That’s kind of common with other countries too, especially those that don’t really take pains to standardize their design. [Nowadays] a flagmaker is likely to go to a source like Wikipedia, and it may vary in its accuracy,” Becker told CNA.
The same flag chosen in 1929 was reconfirmed in a revised Vatican constitution, issued by Pope John Paul II in 2000. The original Vatican flag was actually square, as indeed the official version is today. Since roughly the 1960s, though, buildings began to fly oblong state flags that followed Italy’s flag proportions, probably because most Vatican flags at the time were mass-produced there.
The flag has special significance beyond the walls of Vatican City as a marker for the Vatican’s extraterritorial properties, of which there are more than a dozen. These properties, which include major basilicas such as St. Paul Outside the Walls and St. Mary Major, are marked as the Vatican’s through their flying of the papal flag.
Becker said he hopes his website will serve as a helpful resource for anyone looking for the exact Vatican flag design, at least until the Vatican issues some kind of clarification on what exactly the flag should look like.
“The papal flag is interesting because on the one hand, the Vatican is such a small state, but the papal flag is seen all over the world. Anywhere there’s a Catholic church, you might be likely to run into a papal flag,” he said.
“It would be nice if somebody at the Holy See could, through their website or wherever, make some design specifications more available … design specifications that manufacturers could rely on a bit more.”
A 40 Days for Life volunteer tries to pray for the end of abortion in Madrid in front of the police present on Dec. 28, 2023. / Credit: Nicolás de Cárdenas/ACI Prensa
ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 28, 2023 / 18:30 pm (CNA).
The Government Delegation (p… […]
Young people in sports jerseys react after winning a friendly soccer game at World Youth Day in Panama in 2019. / Jonah McKeown/CNA
St. Louis, Mo., Jan 15, 2023 / 08:00 am (CNA).
St. John Paul II once said that “every Christian is called to bec… […]
13 Comments
The extent of corruption in the Church is physically nauseating at this stage. Is this predatory monster going to be defrocked of his cardinalatial scarlet and laicized like McCarrick? Is he going to be prosecuted by French authorities under French criminal law for his rape of this 14-year-old girl? Is His Eminence Jean-Pierre Ricard going to be publicly deputed by the appropriate Vatican authorities and the French bishops’ conference to a life of prayer and penance in a strict monastery for his “reprehensible” crimes? Since he is a Bergoglio protege, we can guess what the answers are. And how many more predatory monsters are there among the “princes of the Church”?
I pray for this priest of God and the young woman he abused when she was 14. Sin is real; repentance and remorse are possible; forgiveness and reconciliation are made possible by Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. We don’t hold people in their sin who have asked forgiveness.
That is the catechism and the most constructive ethos from an anthropological perspective. And we have the directive from Christ, himself. But I do note that Jesus forgive nearly every type of sin while personally present on earth (of course with the injunction to go and sin no more), EXCEPT the sin of corrupting a child.
It is if he doesn’t truly repent which, given his age, is reasonably questionable. To suddenly repent decades later? Sorry, but I don’t buy it. If he’s not genuinely repentant he’s goin to Hell.
Is he “repentant” because he got caught. If there is one victim, there’s likely more.
Our Blessed Lord Himself made it clear that it was indeed unforgivable, and that when the corrupter of children was flung into the depths of the sea with a millstone round his neck, into the depths of the sea was precisely where he would stay.
Sir, perhaps more biblical study, and less flaunting to total strangers of your purported diaconate, would be to your spiritual advantage.
I have no authority of absolution. I do wonder what Christ holds in these cases since the clue he left us in the case of leading children astray is ominous.
35 years later at age 78 after a life spent in the highest reaches of the hierarchy? I think it would be irrational to accept simpliciter his “asking forgiveness” now.
While it may seem this HIGH RANKING CHURCHMAN should be commended for coming clean, it is beyond reprehensible that he waited until he had lived out his life in a position of power and ease. He’s 78. He won’t be spending much time in prison for CHILD RAPE. He’ll be dead soon. His victim’s soul was murdered decades ago. May God have mercy on his soul.
11 Bishops in France so far including one cardinal, are being investigated for committing or hiding abuse. What does this say about character and leadership for a people who are defined by the extent to which they follow the character and the ways of doing life as Jesus demonstrated in a clear and decisive manner in how he lived and taught his disciples! I will ask this question. Most people in the modern ‘christian’ west have no idea who Jesus was and is, his character attributes etc etc and who would be the cause of this ignorance? Jesus is a threat to the Catholic Church as it has become, and a threat to the economic paradigm of modern western culture! Just as he was a threat to the power base of the Pharisees and King Herod and that is why he was set up with the Romans to be crucified! Mankind has ‘defined’ god in his own image!
A very different attitude to Cardinal Jean-Pierre Richard is evident in most responses here to the attitude of responses to Cardinal Pell’s series of trials and the ultimate overturning of his conviction. A different response was also evident in Cardinal Pell’s relationship with Ballarat priest serial child abuser Father Ridsdale whom Cardinal Pell lived with and later supported in a court appearance. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ridsdale#:~:text=Ridsdale%20was%20born%20at%20St,where%20he%20was%20a%20chaplain.
The extent of corruption in the Church is physically nauseating at this stage. Is this predatory monster going to be defrocked of his cardinalatial scarlet and laicized like McCarrick? Is he going to be prosecuted by French authorities under French criminal law for his rape of this 14-year-old girl? Is His Eminence Jean-Pierre Ricard going to be publicly deputed by the appropriate Vatican authorities and the French bishops’ conference to a life of prayer and penance in a strict monastery for his “reprehensible” crimes? Since he is a Bergoglio protege, we can guess what the answers are. And how many more predatory monsters are there among the “princes of the Church”?
I pray for this priest of God and the young woman he abused when she was 14. Sin is real; repentance and remorse are possible; forgiveness and reconciliation are made possible by Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. We don’t hold people in their sin who have asked forgiveness.
That is the catechism and the most constructive ethos from an anthropological perspective. And we have the directive from Christ, himself. But I do note that Jesus forgive nearly every type of sin while personally present on earth (of course with the injunction to go and sin no more), EXCEPT the sin of corrupting a child.
I hope that you’re not suggesting that this prelate’s sin is unforgivable.
It is if he doesn’t truly repent which, given his age, is reasonably questionable. To suddenly repent decades later? Sorry, but I don’t buy it. If he’s not genuinely repentant he’s goin to Hell.
Is he “repentant” because he got caught. If there is one victim, there’s likely more.
Our Blessed Lord Himself made it clear that it was indeed unforgivable, and that when the corrupter of children was flung into the depths of the sea with a millstone round his neck, into the depths of the sea was precisely where he would stay.
Sir, perhaps more biblical study, and less flaunting to total strangers of your purported diaconate, would be to your spiritual advantage.
I have no authority of absolution. I do wonder what Christ holds in these cases since the clue he left us in the case of leading children astray is ominous.
35 years later at age 78 after a life spent in the highest reaches of the hierarchy? I think it would be irrational to accept simpliciter his “asking forgiveness” now.
While it may seem this HIGH RANKING CHURCHMAN should be commended for coming clean, it is beyond reprehensible that he waited until he had lived out his life in a position of power and ease. He’s 78. He won’t be spending much time in prison for CHILD RAPE. He’ll be dead soon. His victim’s soul was murdered decades ago. May God have mercy on his soul.
11 Bishops in France so far including one cardinal, are being investigated for committing or hiding abuse. What does this say about character and leadership for a people who are defined by the extent to which they follow the character and the ways of doing life as Jesus demonstrated in a clear and decisive manner in how he lived and taught his disciples! I will ask this question. Most people in the modern ‘christian’ west have no idea who Jesus was and is, his character attributes etc etc and who would be the cause of this ignorance? Jesus is a threat to the Catholic Church as it has become, and a threat to the economic paradigm of modern western culture! Just as he was a threat to the power base of the Pharisees and King Herod and that is why he was set up with the Romans to be crucified! Mankind has ‘defined’ god in his own image!
This Cardinal needs to be laicized. Prison is simply not sufficient punishment.
A very different attitude to Cardinal Jean-Pierre Richard is evident in most responses here to the attitude of responses to Cardinal Pell’s series of trials and the ultimate overturning of his conviction. A different response was also evident in Cardinal Pell’s relationship with Ballarat priest serial child abuser Father Ridsdale whom Cardinal Pell lived with and later supported in a court appearance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ridsdale#:~:text=Ridsdale%20was%20born%20at%20St,where%20he%20was%20a%20chaplain.