2023-08-08 10:47:10
Pope Francis speaks with Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet (right) during a symposium on the priesthood in the Paul-VI hall, at the Vatican, on February 17, 2022. TIZIANA FABI / AFP
Mother Marie Ferréol, a nun who, in the spring of 2021, had been brutally dismissed from the Catholic community of Dominican women in Pontcallec, near Vannes, requested, on August 3, the summons to justice of the Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect emeritus residing in Rome. The former prefect of the congregation for bishops, now 79 years old, had himself signed the decree for the final dismissal of Marie Ferréol from this traditionalist community which covers several educational establishments, such as the Saint- Pie-X in Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine), and of which she had been a member for thirty-four years, also demanding that she leave her habit.
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The nun – Sabine Baudin de La Valette, her real name – is suing him for civil liability “for the faults he committed and the material and moral damage she suffered”, indicates his lawyer, Me Adeline Le Gouvello, from the Versailles bar. Also assigned were Jean-Charles Nault, abbot of Saint-Wandrille Abbey (Seine-Maritime), where Cardinal Ouellet spends part of his summer each year, and Emmanuelle Desjobert, mother abbess of Sainte-Marie-de- Boulaur (Gers).
It was following their double apostolic visit that Marie Ferréol, now 57 years old, had been exclaustrated from Pontcallec and exfiltrated to the abbey of Saint-Pierre-de-Solesmes, in Sarthe, without being able to enter contact neither with his family nor with his former community. Mother Ferréol also sued the trade union association of the Dominicans of the Holy Spirit. The hearing is scheduled for Lorient (Morbihan) on October 4.
“She lost her life”
On the grounds of confidentiality, the nun never knew of what facts she would have been guilty, despite her repeated requests, and was never heard. Jean-Charles Nault had only specified to the Monde that was not a problem “sexual” or a matter of morals. The Vatican had not responded to the ” appeal “ of the Dominican from Pontcallec, who addressed Pope Francis.
Writer and member of the French Academy, the lawyer François Sureau was indignant, in a tribune at the Mondethat we have “transformed canon law into a scrap of paper”, regretting that the adversarial principle, “to which all systems of civilized law are attached, has simply not been respected”. After having tried many steps to find a solution both canonical and material, Mother Marie Ferréol reluctantly decided to take this legal action, indicates Me Le Gouvello.
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