Never Again?

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TRANSCRIPT

A class action lawsuit has been filed against a diocese in Canada accusing at least 88 priests or diocesan staff of sexual assault against 101 alleged victims. Church Militant's Nick Wylie discusses one big name that stands out in the lawsuit.

Peter Mansbridge, former CBS News anchor, Canada: "You've used the term 'never again,' promising 'never again' to them. Has the Church done enough to ensure that 'never again' is possible?"

Canadian cardinal Marc Ouellet, the prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, has been accused of sexual assault in a class action lawsuit filed against the archdiocese of Quebec. 

The 78-year-old prelate allegedly assaulted — in 2008 and 2010 — a woman who had previously interned with the diocese.

The lawsuit claims the cardinal met the then-23-year-old in 2008 at a dinner for the Sisters of Charity, where she claims he massaged her shoulders and caressed her back in a conference room after the event.

She asserts he kissed her on the cheek and uncomfortably hugged her at another event the same year.

The accuser also alleges the Canadian prelate kissed her on the cheek and groped her in 2010 at an ordination, telling her, "There is no harm in spoiling yourself a little."

The lawsuit says the woman told an independent advisory committee about the incidents in 2020 and wrote a letter to Pope Francis about it in January 2021 at the committee's suggestion.

She supposedly received word the next month the pope had appointed Fr. Jacques Servais to investigate Ouellet. As of this time, no conclusions have been provided on the investigation. 

Critics fear the possibility of yet another failure of Francis to handle alleged misconduct by bishops.

Cardinal Ouellet penned the Vatican's first direct response to the assertion Pope Francis knew and covered up sex-abuse allegations against serial homosexual predator Theodore McCarrick, dismissing the accusation as a "political plot that lacks any real basis."

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