Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the recently retired Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, has denied new allegations of sexual assault.
The allegations emerged in the defamation case that Cardinal Ouellet initiated in December against Paméla Groleau (Twitter), who worked for the prelate when he was Archbishop of Quebec.
In an August 2022 lawsuit, Groleau had accused the prelate of sexual assault of touching her inappropriately at different events between 2008 and 2010.
Le Journal de Montréal, Quebec’s leading newspaper, reported that Groleau’s defense counsel in the defamation case revealed two new allegations:
- A woman, in a letter to the defense counsel, described an alleged sexual assault that took place in the sacristy of the seminary in Montreal in 1992, when Father Ouellet, then 48, was seminary rector, and the woman was assisting with preparation for Mass.
- A second woman, in a “letter addressed directly to Pope Francis,” alleged that in 2014, Cardinal Ouellet touched her inappropriately at a party in the presence of her boyfriend.
In a reference to the second allegation—and an apparent reference to a third—OSV News reported that “two further documents filed by Groleau’s lawyers mention other troubling allegations the cardinal’s accuser claims have been known to Pope Francis since 2014. Neither of these allegations has been verified in court.”
“Ms. Groleau’s view of things is not in keeping with the person I am and amounts to new defamatory allegations,” Cardinal Ouellet said in response to the new allegations. “I firmly deny having made any inappropriate act whatsoever in relation to these women.”
Cardinal Ouellet was Archbishop of Quebec and Primate of Canada from 2003 to 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI appointed him Prefect of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for Bishops. Pope Francis confirmed the appointment in 2013. The prelate stayed in his position well beyond the five-year term and retired in January 2023 at the age of 78.
Prior to taking part in the August 2022 class-action lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Quebec, Groleau had lodged her allegation in accord with Vos Estis, Pope Francis’s motu proprio on sexual abuse.
Pope Francis was informed of Groleau’s allegation in January 2021 and appointed Father Jacques Servais, SJ, to investigate. Both Ouellet and Servais are longtime scholars of the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. In 1991, Ouellet and Servais were among the six co-founders of the Lubac-Balthasar-Speyr Association, which runs Casa Balthasar, a house of formation led by Father Servais.
In August 2022, after Groleau’s allegation against Ouellet was revealed in the civil lawsuit, the director of the Holy See Press Office announced that Pope Francis determined “there are insufficient elements to open a canonical investigation.”