This Saturday, May 25, the Loiret Assize Court sentenced Olivier de Scitivaux, a 64-year-old former priest, to 17 years of criminal imprisonment for rape and sexual assault on young boys. The accused admitted “without reservation” to hundreds of acts committed over a period of more than a decade.
Olivier de Scitivaux, who officiated at the Saint-Paterne church in Orléans in the 1990s and at the Cléry-Saint-André basilica between 2013 and 2018, admitted touching, caresses, fellatio, and penetration digital and penile. The court found him guilty of all the rapes and aggravated sexual assaults. In addition to the 17-year sentence, a 10-year security period was imposed, exceeding the requisitions of the attorney general.
The crimes tried date back to the 1990s and 2000s. Olivier de Scitivaux had become friends with the parents of his victims, three brothers whom he attacked regularly, often at the family home or in second homes of the Scitivaux family. The victims, then aged 7 to 9, suffered repeated violence, often in front of other members of the Church.
During the trial, the three brothers and a friend described the abuse they suffered with precision and modesty, revealing that they were unaware that the others were also victims. The former priest, returned to the secular state at his request, confirmed their testimonies by designating the three brothers as his main victims.
The first alerts concerning the accused's behavior were issued in the 1980s, but they were not taken into account by the diocese. Leaders and families had reported suspicious behavior as early as 1998, without action being taken. This institutional silence reflects a broader problem within the Catholic Church, regularly accused of turning a blind eye to cases of child abuse. In France, a 2021 report found that around 330 minors had been abused by members of the Church over the past 000 years.
The accused's lawyer, Me Damien Brossier, called for leniency, arguing that his client "is no longer a danger" due to his age and the absence of recent offenses. However, the court ordered, in addition to the prison sentence, socio-judicial monitoring, an injunction for treatment, and a ban on carrying out any activity involving contact with minors.
The Olivier de Scitivaux affair is part of a series of child abuse scandals which are shaking the Catholic Church and raising questions about the management of abuse and the protection of victims.
