French lawyer plans to pursue prosecution of Oblates
Accuses Roman Catholic religious order of protecting Johannes Rivoire while in France
Rev. Vincent Gruber, leader of France’s Oblates, speaks to reporters in Lyon on Wednesday. A French lawyer accused the Oblates on Thursday of protecting Johannes Rivoire and says she will pursue charges against them. (Photo by Emma Tranter)
LYON — A French lawyer says she will work to prosecute the French Oblates for allegedly protecting Rev. Johannes Rivoire, a former Nunavut priest accused of sexually abusing Inuit children during his time in the territory.
Nadia Debbache, a lawyer in Lyon working with Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., accused the Oblates of “concealing a criminal” while, she says, they knew about Rivoire’s criminal charges and did not notify French authorities.
“The order has been aiding and helping and assisting a person who is wanted for criminal acts,” Debbache said during a news conference in Lyon Thursday.
Rivoire worked in Nunavut from 1960 through the early 1990s. He’s a member of the Oblates, a Roman Catholic order that primarily works in education.
Rivoire was charged with historical sexual abuses in relation to allegations in 1998, but those charges were stayed in 2017. RCMP laid a new charge of indecent assault against Rivoire earlier this year.
Debbache is looking to prosecute the Oblates under a section of France’s penal code against the act of providing the perpetrator of a crime with things like accommodation, a place of retirement, subsidies or any other means of avoiding investigation or arrest.
A delegation of representatives from NTI, which includes three Inuit who say Rivoire abused them or a family member, is in France this week pushing for Rivoire’s extradition to Canada. Earlier this week, French officials signalled that this is not going to happen.
The door to the room in the French Oblates headquarters where Rev. Vincent Gruber met with a delegation of Nunavut Inuit is closed after media were asked to leave the room on Wednesday. (Photo by Emma Tranter)
“The delegation has given me a mandate to prosecute,” Debbache said.
Rivoire, who is 91 and lives in Lyon, met with members of the NTI delegation Wednesday. According to Kilikvak Kabloona, NTI’s chief executive officer, Rivoire denied all allegations of sexual abuse.
Debbache said she plans to ask Lyon’s lead prosecutor to open an investigation into whether charges can be laid against the Oblates.
Before meeting with Rivoire, members of the delegation met with Rev. Vincent Gruber, who leads France’s Oblates.
Gruber told reporters the Oblates have started a process to remove Rivoire from their congregation.
Gruber was also clear that the Oblates are not currently paying for Rivoire’s living expenses, his lawyer or his pension.
Debbache said Gruber told the delegation the Oblates were not informed about Rivoire’s charges until 2013.
Both Debbache and NTI question how the Oblates could not have known of Rivoire’s charges until then, given that in 1998 the RCMP put out a Canada-wide arrest warrant for Rivoire.
French Member of the National Assembly Aurélien Taché says he believes the French government should acknowledge the alleged harm done by French nationals to Inuit. (Photo by Emma Tranter)
Gruber also told the delegation that in 2018, he informed France’s top prosecutor of the accusations against Rivoire.
“He told us that he had received no answer from the French authorities,” Debbache said.
In an interview with Nunatsiaq News, Aurélien Taché, a member of France’s National Assembly, said the French government also has a part to play in looking into why Rivoire wasn’t charged in France.
Taché sat with the delegation during its news conference Wednesday and said he supports the demands to extradite Rivoire.
“France has also known colonial contexts … Truthfully, these systemic crimes should get a much stronger political response,” he said.
Taché also noted that an independent commission recently investigated sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France. A report on the commission’s findings was released last year.
“The commission didn’t look into crimes committed abroad … To say it differently, they looked into French people, white boys, not those who were abused elsewhere.”
“It shocks me. That’s why I wanted to intervene,” he said.
If one were to start prosecuting all of France’s colonial misdeeds the line of aggrieved parties would long indeed and in terms of priority Msr. Rivoire’s case would be at the bottom of a very long and bloody list.
Indeed, North America in general would be very far down the list.
That might be true, but the focus here is on Rivoire. What is it that drives this negativity in people like you?
If a relative of an Local child abuser houses them and feeds them and cares for them would you also describe that as colonial? Is this now a new verb for “evil” or “criminal”? Just trying to keep up.
It’s right in the story “France has also known colonial contexts … Truthfully, these systemic crimes should get a much stronger political response,” … comprehension isn’t as important as language to some folks.
I guess more than one victim came out of alleged sexual abuse doesn’t matter at this point.
Stop going Roman Catholic, if he won’t come to Canada ban all Roman Catholic
Stop going religious. Ban all religion.
Nadia Debbache, a lawyer in Lyon, says for 300 dollars an hour I will fight for your cause til the end of Rivoire’s time on this Earth. Which will be over well before the legal system gets him to Canada.
So, going after the oblates will cease when reviour finally croaks?
Never going to happen. French law and legal tradition are very different from an outsider’s point of view. And the best way to get obtain justice, in this case, is not extradition. The relationship between the church and the French state makes any state intervention in the religious matter a hot potato. No French politicians who want to join the cabinet in the future would risk it. As long as the man is in France, nobody can touch him. He knows it Paris knows this and Ottawa knows this. Without changes in French politics, this principle would never change. If the French allow for the extradition of French citizens, Foreign Legion would never be able to fill its rank. Haha. Is a sad reality, I know. On the other hand, Has anybody tried to force Paris’s hand for a domestic prosecution in France? A Marseillaise prison would be an “experience” for the man. There are worse punishments than being extradited to Canada. Just saying…