A senior official in France’s troubled Strasbourg archdiocese has said he mistakenly told media that a canonical case for child sexual abuse against a reinstated vicar general was closed when it was in fact open.
Canon Jean-Luc Liénard told the French investigative outlet Mediapart Sept. 29 that he had misunderstood the situation surrounding Canon Hubert Schmitt, who was controversially reinstated as a vicar general in July before resigning in early September.
Liénard, who is also a vicar general, said: “I realized that my partial knowledge of the case led to a misunderstanding of it, hence my misinterpretation. The canonical proceedings concerning Canon Schmitt are continuing.”
The admission comes weeks after an anonymous group of priests in the archdiocese in eastern France issued an appeal for a new apostolic visitation of the archdiocese, arguing that a network of cronyism remained despite a succession of scandals and leadership changes.
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