PARIS — The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation into alleged “sexual aggression” by Catholic archbishop Luigi Ventura, the Vatican’s envoy to France, according to French officials. Paris City Hall’s press office told The Associated Press that the victim is a man in his 30s working for the town hall’s international relations department. “He caressed and fondled his buttocks several times in front of witnesses,” a spokesman at the City Hall told The Associated Press. In 2013, the Vatican charged its then-ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Monsignor Jozef Wesolowski, with sexually abusing young boys. Wesolowski was defrocked by the Vatican’s church court, but he died before the Vatican’s criminal trial got underway.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer February 15, 2019 13:41 UTC