ROME (AP) — The Holy See has formally protested to France after a French court ruled that a former senior Vatican official was responsible for the unlawful dismissal of a nun from a religious order.
According to French media, on April 3, the Lorient tribunal ruled in favor of the nun Sabine de la Valette, then known as Mother Marie Ferréol. After a Vatican investigation, she was forced to resign from her order, the Dominicans of the Holy Spirit.
In a statement on Saturday, the Vatican said it had received no notification of such a ruling, but that the ruling still represented a “serious violation” of the right to religious freedom.
The Vatican confirmed that Pope Francis had commissioned Cardinal Marc Ouellet, then head of the Vatican episcopate, to conduct an investigation that ended with the Holy See taking a series of canonical measures against Valette, including her expulsion after 34 years as a nun Medal.
The statement also cited potential diplomatic problems since Ouellet enjoys immunity as a cardinal and an official of a foreign government. The Holy See is internationally recognized as a sovereign state.
According to French Catholic daily La Croix, the court in Lorient found that the nun’s expulsion was unfounded and ordered Ouellet, the order and other defendants to pay over 200,000 euros ($213,000) in material and moral damages, as well as fines . The defendants appealed, La Croix said.
The Vatican often conducts such internal investigations into religious orders or dioceses, which may be triggered by complaints of financial mismanagement, sexual or other abuse, or government problems. It considers the measures it takes to be an exclusively internal part of the life of the Catholic Church.
As a result, the court decision in Lorient represented an unusual intervention by the secular judiciary into internal church affairs, leading to a diplomatic complaint from the Holy See.
However, the French judicial system appears increasingly willing to try even high-ranking church officials, much more so than in Italy, and particularly when it comes to allegations of sexual misconduct and cover-ups by clergy.
In 2020, for example, a French appeals court rejected a lower court ruling that convicted Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of covering up the sexual abuse of minors in his flock.
That same year, a Paris court convicted a retired Vatican ambassador to France of sexually assaulting five men in 2018 and 2019 and gave him a suspended sentence of eight months. The Vatican had lifted the immunity of the ambassador, Monsignor Luigi Ventura, allowing the trial to continue.