Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet atends the pope’s Mass for Our Lady of Guadalupe on Dec. 12, 2022, at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. / Photo by ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP via Getty Images
Denver, Colo., Dec 13, 2022 / 16:50 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Marc Ouellet has filed a defamation lawsuit in Quebec courts contending that a woman wrongly accused him of sexual assault in a class-action sex abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec.
“I have never been guilty of these reprehensible behaviors, much less of those alleged against other members of the clergy cited in the class action,” the cardinal said in a Dec. 13 statement accompanying the lawsuit. “This inappropriate association, intentionally constructed and widely spread for improper purposes, must be denounced.”
“Having preliminarily made sure to protect the plaintiff’s anonymity by obtaining an order to that effect, today I am taking legal action for defamation before the courts of Québec in order to prove the falsity of the allegations made against me and to restore my reputation and honor,” Ouellet said.
The 78-year-old cardinal served as archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010. He is currently prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, a key Vatican body that helps the pope evaluate prospective candidates to be named Catholic bishop.
Ouellet was accused of sexual assault by a woman identified pseudonymously as “F.” in an August class-action civil suit filed by multiple plaintiffs against the Archdiocese of Quebec.
The lawsuit against the archdiocese includes the testimony of 101 people who say they were sexually assaulted by clerics or Church staff from 1940 to the present. Eighty-eight clerics are accused in the suit.
Justin Wee, one of the lawyers who is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, told CBC News his client “F.” had heard about the defamation lawsuit online. He had not seen the motion to initiate the lawsuit.
The Vatican, for its part, conducted a preliminary investigation in August. Pope Francis determined that there was not sufficient evidence to begin a canonical investigation against Ouellet for sexual assault.
The woman “F.” says that the cardinal, then archbishop of Quebec, inappropriately kissed or touched her on multiple occasions while she worked as a pastoral intern for the Quebec Archdiocese between 2008 and 2010. She alleged that the misconduct included kissing her and sliding his hand down her back to her buttock.
Ouellet’s defamation lawsuit was filed in the civil division of the superior court in the District of Montreal. It alleges that the “false allegations” against him “have caused and continue to cause serious damage” to the cardinal’s personal and professional reputation. He has also suffered “significant psychological anguish.”
His lawsuit seeks 100,000 Canadian dollars in compensatory damages, about $74,000.
“Any financial compensation that I may receive as a part of these proceedings will be donated in its entirety in support of the fight against the sexual abuse of the Indigenous peoples of Canada,” Ouellet said Tuesday.
According to the cardinal’s defamation lawsuit, the alleged incidents occurred at four different public events: a Sisters of Charity event in Beauport in the fall of 2008; a pastoral appointment ceremony in November 2008; a meeting at an event in a church basement; and during a diaconal ordination at a church in February 2010.
The defamation lawsuit says the cardinal “has no recollection of ever having met Mrs. F. He does not know her.” It says her accounts are inconsistent with the nature of the cardinal’s interactions in public settings. At these events, his lawsuit says, he would make a customary greeting “either by shaking hands or by a kiss on the cheek and would attempt to personalize each interaction in a manner consistent with the behavior of any person in a public representation role.”
His lawsuit further contends that even if the alleged acts took place, which the cardinal denies, they did not constitute “touching of a sexual nature” or sexual assault. It claims the accuser’s comments are contradictory.
The defamation lawsuit alleges another legal fault in that the allegations came in the context of “other allegations involving serious acts against minors.” The allegations against the cardinal are not of a similar nature to the sexual assault of minors by other clergymen alleged in the suit against the archdiocese.
“Ms. F. could not allege her story in such a procedural context,” the lawsuit says. “One may wonder why Ms. F.’s story is included among reprehensible acts of pedophilia, except to include a member of the high clergy in the case.”
“To have associated Mr. Ouellet with individuals who would have committed acts of such a nature constitutes negligence,” the defamation lawsuit continues. “This is so, because the ordinary citizen will perceive that all the reproaches made against the ecclesiastics named in the application are of the same nature, as they are grouped under the same procedure.”
“I firmly denied these slanderous and defamatory accusations unfairly made against me,” he added, citing his previous statement of Aug. 19.
“In truth, I want to emphasize that I never committed the acts of which the plaintiff accuses me,” he said Tuesday.
Ouellet said that sexual abuse victims need justice.
“It is clear that the victims of sexual abuse are entitled to just compensation for the harm they have suffered. I am sensitive to their suffering and reiterate my sincere closeness to them,” he said. “Their right to justice is not questioned by my taking this stand, which is nevertheless painfully necessary to defend the truth, my reputation, and my honor.”
The class-action lawsuit against the Quebec Archdiocese, filed Aug. 16, says that F. wrote to Pope Francis about Ouellet in January 2021. She received an email Feb. 23, 2021, stating that the Vatican had appointed Jesuit Father Jacques Servais to investigate the cardinal. Her last communication with Servais was the following month, March 2021.
Less than a week after the lawsuit was filed, the Vatican said it would not hold a trial against Cardinal Ouellet over the sexual assault allegations.
Servais, the Vatican investigator, said in August that “there are no grounds” to open an investigation into sexual assault. “Neither in his written report sent to the Holy Father nor in the testimony via Zoom that I subsequently took in the presence of a member of the Diocesan Ad Hoc Committee, did this person make an accusation that would provide grounds for such an investigation.”
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni added that after relevant consultations, Pope Francis “declares that there are insufficient elements to open a canonical investigation for sexual assault.”
Ouellet was ordained a priest of Quebec’s Diocese of Amos in 1968, at age 23. He joined the Sulpicians in 1972. In 2001 he was appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity and consecrated a bishop.
He served as archbishop of Quebec from 2002 to 2010, when he was appointed prefect of the Congregation for Bishops and president of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.
Ouellet has been outspoken about the need to prevent sex abuse by clergy and the need for sound formation of priests. He has advocated for the increased inclusion of women in the formation of priests and has said that priests need to know how to relate to women well to have a balanced personality.
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I shall vote with my eyes. I will not watch the Olympics.
Surprised that the archbishop of Malta was outraged, I thought that he was these people’s apologist?
That Paris suffered a power surge that blew the lights in all buildings save the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and it’s bright light was beautiful to behold!
I am outraged at this heinous display and mockery of our most sacred Holy Eucharist. May God have mercy on the souls of all involved. I will not watch a single minute of these games. Paris and all concerned should be ashamed of themselves.
I hope that the Holy Father joins us, in a public pronouncement, his rebuke of this blasphemous display.
So many Catholics on these pages ask, “What can I do?” regarding the disgusting display at the Olympics. For starters, stop using the term “TRANS”. By so doing you are giving the appearance of a reality it does not merit. There’s no such thing as “trans.” Call it for what it is: homosexuality. That’s what what was on display. Stop being suckers for the woke nonsense this culture is handing you. I’m afraid my brothers and sisters in Christ are some of the most gullible people I’ve seen. This gullibility evidenced itself during the Great Covid Paranoia Psychosis of 2020. Even the Pope himself was forcing Vatican employees to take a vaccine against their will. I sometimes think that otherwise intelligent people are under a spell
Deacon Edward,
I am with you on the issue of “Great viral paranoia”. I will take it further though. The Church gave a sign to the world, of a blasphemous communion when it closed its doors to the unvaccinated and allowed in only the vaccinated. The vaccines were abortion-tainted i.e. they utilized the aborted human embryos’ cells either for the design of the vaccines or/and their production or/and their testing. PF cracked a letter which actively discouraged Catholics from demanding an ethical alternative (which already existed). Most gladly embraced it. As a result, those who partook the vaccine “made” on human sacrifice were allowed to the Holy Communion. Those who refused were not allowed. This is a very gross blasphemy done by the Church and not many noticed it.
The Church “sanctified” children’s sacrifice, for the first time in its history and tried to force its members to participate in it. It made a participation in the sin of a murder of children a condition for receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. It was done in an oblique form (as everything is being done in the postmodern world) but it was done nevertheless. In some places vaccination took place in churches, in some places with great solemnity. In Salisbury Cathedral the “holy injections” were accompanied by the live sacred music, some written for the Eucharistic hymns. (I wrote a paper about that “communion of abandonment” that is a hellish communion contrary to the true Communion of the Union with Christ and each other.)
And so, I see this parody of the Last Supper as a logical consequence of the Church’s blasphemy of the Holy Communion. The Church has never repented that. The world simply takes the Church’s sins on board now, being semi-conscious of it.
Yes, Anna. I agree. The world simply takes the Church’s sins on board now, being semi-conscious of it.
Re those church leaders who have not publicly spoken against the repugnant spectacle. Are they privately thrilled to see their ‘faith’ represented as their imagination would have it? Do they privately applaud the abhorrent spectacle? Why else would they not speak against it?
JMJ, have mercy.
Anna, I hadn’t thought about this dimension of the rot that is our current moral culture and how it has thoroughly infiltrated our Catholic Church.
Satan is our enemy. He has recruited much of the pagan world and actively seeks recruits in the Catholic Church as well. Satan hates Christ. Satan hates the Mass. Satan hates the Eucharist. Satan hates the fact that Christ’s death and resurrection has brought the possibility of redemption to a fallen world.
Not all men dressed as women are homosexual. Some are Drag Queens not transgendered like they like to be called and are doing it for entertainment purposes only and have wives that are genetic females. It’s awful what has happened and evil. let’s pray for them and someday like us all they will have to answer for what they did.
Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
At the Last Supper, of those who followed Jesus most closely, one betrayed Him, one denied Him, and all fled like sheep whose shepherd has been smitten.
Jesus loved them anyway and commissioned them to spread the word after His resurrection. We have the grace of God, and should we fail to follow in the Disciples footsteps, how different will we believers be than those who hate Christ, mock his cross, and persecute Christ’s followers,
Displays such as this in the LGBT+++ movement, are the devils work and prayer is the force that will spread God’s word and protect his people.
“Words cannot describe it.”
Gotta disagree with you on that – let me trot out just a few: Disgusting, pathetic, sad, outrageous, blasphemous, insulting, inexcusable – and that’s just the start.
Yet there are those who claim that the whole pathetic performance was not meant to insult anyone. I say to anyone who believes that for one instant – I have 6 acres of oceanfront property just north of Brattleboro Vermont that I can let you have for a song.
Your Holiness – We’re ALL waiting on you to say something – ANYTHING – about this.
Please
The current Vatican is unbothered by all of this garbarge from Paris. Nothing official has been said…yet.
And it is unlikely anything will be said. So be it, Francis. Sad.