Frenchman accusing Vatican diplomat takes case to Rome
Posted July 3, 2019 9:39 am.
VATICAN CITY — One of the half-dozen men who have accused the Vatican’s ambassador to France of groping them is taking his complaint directly to the Vatican after claiming the Holy See had invoked diplomatic immunity in a French criminal probe.
Mathieu De La Souchere met with one of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisers on Wednesday after filing a police report in Paris earlier this year. He accused Archbishop Luigi Ventura of touching his buttocks repeatedly in public, during an official reception Jan. 17 at Paris city hall, where he is an employee.
The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into alleged sexual aggression. The Vatican said Ventura was co-operating with the investigation. But De La Souchere said the French case was essentially stalled over the immunity question.
The Associated Press
