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French prosecutors said Tuesday that they had opened an inquiry into child abuse by a cardinal after he confessed publicly to “reprehensible” acts with a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s.

Jean-Pierre Ricard, a retired bishop made a cardinal by pope Benedict XVI in 2006, was named among 11 senior clergymen who face sexual abuse allegations in an announcement by the French Catholic Church on Monday. 

In a message read out at a conference of bishops, Ricard admitted that “35 years ago, when I was a priest, I behaved in a reprehensible way towards a girl of 14. There is no doubt that my behaviour caused serious and long-lasting consequences for that person.”

The most serious sexual offences in France such as rape usually have a statute of limitations of 30 years, but the period to bring charges can be extended if the victim was a minor at the time of the offence.

The maximum period for charges for sexual abuse of a minor is usually 20 years from the date at which the victim turns 18. 

“A preliminary enquiry has been started to verify the facts of this revelation,” prosecutor Dominique Laurens told AFP in the southern city of Marseille, where Ricard said the abuse took place. 

Judicial sources in Marseille said the bishop of Nice had alerted prosecutors on October 24, after Ricard told him that he had “kissed” a teenage girl.

The confession by the 78-year-old was received “like a shock” by fellow church leaders, the head of the Bishops’ Conference of France, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, told reporters on Monday at a meeting in the southwestern town of Lourdes.

Ricard served as a bishop in Coutances, Montpellier and most recently in the western city of Bordeaux from 2001 to 2019, when he retired.

“It’s a good thing that he confessed and acknowledged it,” a 70-year-old parishioner in Bordeaux, Martine, told AFP when asked for reaction. 

She said it “was a shame that in the Catholic religion we don’t allow priests, archbishops and other people to get married.” 

– Other cases –

Another 10 bishops, either retired or still serving, face sexual abuse allegations, de Moulins-Beaufort said on Monday in the latest revelations of sexual abuse in the upper reaches of the French church.

French Catholics were rocked last year by the findings of an inquiry that confirmed widespread abuse of minors by priests, deacons and lay members of the Church dating from the 1950s.

It found that 216,000 minors had been abused by clergy over the past seven decades — a number that climbed to 330,000 when claims against lay members of the Church are included, such as teachers at Catholic schools.

That led French bishops to jointly kneel in repentance in November last year during a meeting in Lourdes, the spiritual home of French Catholics.

“It’s more than an earthquake,” Christine Pedotti, the head of the Temoignage Chretien magazine, told AFP. “How can we believe people who were on their knees in Lourdes a year ago?”

She said she feared another exodus of church members, which would deepen the steadily declining influence of the Catholic church in France.

Other senior French clergy have become embroiled in sexual abuse scandals that have undermined the Catholic church in countries from Ireland to Australia to the United States over the last decade. 

Retired French bishop Michel Santier was sanctioned by the Vatican last October for “spiritual abuse having led to voyeurism involving two adult men.”

Another French cardinal, Philippe Barbarin, was accused of covering up for a priest who had assaulted dozens of scouts between 1986 and 1991.

He was convicted in 2019 for not reporting the abuse, but had the guilty sentence overturned a year later. 

In 2020, he resigned from his role as a cardinal, a position which is usually held for life.

Ricard is expected to tender his resignation to the pope.

France’s Catholic church on Monday revealed that 11 former or serving French bishops have been accused of sexual violence or failing to report abuse cases, including a cardinal who confessed to assaulting a girl decades ago.

In a shock revelation, the president of the Bishops’ Conference of France, Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, told reporters that some of the high-ranking church officials faced criminal prosecution, or a church tribunal, or both.

Among them is Jean-Pierre Ricard, a long-standing bishop of Bordeaux who was made a cardinal by pope Benedict XVI in 2006, and who had admitted to a “reprehensible” act on a 14-year-old, de Moulins-Beaufort said.

“Thirty-five years ago, when I was a priest, I behaved in a reprehensible way towards a girl of 14,” Ricard wrote in a message to the Conference read out by de Moulins-Beaufort.

“There is no doubt that my behaviour caused serious and long-lasting consequences for that person,” the cardinal said, adding that he had since asked the woman for forgiveness.

French bishops are meeting in Lourdes in southwestern France for their autumn conference to discuss ways to improve their communication and transparency regarding historical sex crime allegations against the clergy.

The public confession by Ricard, 78, was received “like a shock” by the bishops, de Moulins-Beaufort said.

Ricard, 78, was bishop in Coutances, Montpellier and finally Bordeaux between 2001 and 2019.

All of the accused will face either prosecution or church disciplinary procedures, said de Moulins-Beaufort, who is the archbishop of the northeastern city of Reims.

He said six former bishops had already been accused of sexual abuse “by the judiciary of our country, or by the judiciary of the church”, one of whom had since died.

– ‘Serious shortcomings’ –

Ricard would now be added to that list, as would Michel Santier, who was sanctioned by the Vatican for “spiritual abuse having led to voyeurism involving two adult men”.

Commenting on Santier’s case, Moulins-Beaufort admitted that there had been “serious shortcomings and dysfunctioning at every level”.

Two retired bishops were being investigated by the French judiciary, and were also the target of a church procedure.

The name of one other bishop had been flagged to the authorities, but prosecutors had not yet responded, while the Vatican had curtailed his duties.

One bishop, Andre Fort, was sentenced in 2018 to a suspended prison sentence of eight months.

Olivier Savignac, at the Parler et Revivre association which supports victims of sexual violence, told AFP he was “shaken” by Monday’s revelations concerning a “dizzying” number of bishops.

“So many things are hidden. How many more will emerge?” he asked.

Savignac added: “The church only ever reacts when its back is to the wall.”

Another association, Agir Pour Notre Eglise, who advocates church reform in the face of the accusations, urged the bishops to come up “clear announcements” by the close of their meeting on Tuesday.

“It is with great sadness that we learn of all this,” Alix Huon, a member of the association.

The church was rocked last year by the findings of an inquiry that confirmed widespread abuse of minors by priests, deacons and lay members of the Church dating from the 1950s.

It found that 216,000 minors had been abused by clergy over the past seven decades, a number that climbed to 330,000 when claims against lay members of the Church are included, such as teachers at Catholic schools.

The commission that produced the report denounced the “systemic character” of efforts to shield clergy from prosecution and urged the Church to pay compensation to victims.

Ricard retired as bishop of Bordeaux in 2019 but he remains a cardinal, a position usually held for life. 

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest broke the monthly record for October, with the destruction of 904 square kilometers (350 square miles), official figures showed Friday.

The grim news comes less than two months before far-right President Jair Bolsonaro’s four-year term ends.

The former army captain is a climate change skeptic and has been heavily criticized over policies seen as encouraging deforestation.

The DETER satellite observation system detected a three percent increase in the deforested area of the world’s largest tropical rainforest compared to October 2021, making it a record for that month, according to the INPE space research institute.

The newly deforested section stretches an area just over half the size of Sao Paulo. 

With two months still to go, 2022 is already the worst year for Amazon deforestation since DETER began monitoring it in 2015.

However, far higher figures of deforestation were recorded in the early 2000s.

So far this year almost 9,500 square kilometers have been destroyed, compared to the total 9,200 square kilometers deforested in 2021.

The Brazilian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said deforestation and wildfires had “exploded” since last month’s presidential election, in which Bolsonaro was defeated by leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

Lula, who was also president from 2003-2010, has pledged to eliminate deforestation.

“The increase in deforestation (in October) was expected, but even so, the numbers for the first days of November are frightening, they show an unbridled race for destruction” before the change of government on January 1, said the WWF.

Under Bolsonaro, average annual deforestation increased 75 percent compared to the previous decade.

Lula confirmed on Thursday he would attend the COP27 climate summit in Egypt next week.

“The new government will have its work cut out to repair the situation, to end the perception that the Amazon is a lawless land,” said WWF specialist Raul do Valle in a statement.

However, Bolsonaro’s environmental policies will keep “causing damage for some time yet,” said Andre Freitas from Greenpeace in Brazil.

European stocks mostly ended on a high on Friday as slower US inflation and a relaxing of Covid restrictions in China boosted investor sentiment despite recession prospects.

Frankfurt and Paris managed to advance by more than half a percent by at the end of trading, although gains were capped as the European Union warned the eurozone was set to fall into recession this winter.

The moves followed soaring gains overnight in Asia and on Wall Street and came despite the European Commission hiking regional inflation forecasts for 2022 and 2023 on the back of high energy prices.

In the United States, annual inflation came in at a lower-than-expected 7.7 percent in October, down from 8.2 percent in September, dimming expectations of more aggressive interest-rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

Oil prices were also up as China relaxed some hardline Covid-19 restrictions.

“This has been sufficient to prevent more than modest losses on some indices, with the week ending in a far more optimistic tone,” noted Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG.

“Confident for now that the Fed can walk back some of its most hawkish rhetoric, stocks look well set for additional gains into the second half of November.”

The dollar slumped against rival currencies following the inflation data release, at one point reaching a three-month low against the euro and weakening against the yen and pound.

– ‘Bordering on silly’ –

Daniel Berkowitz, senior investment officer for Prudent Management Associates, struck a note of caution regarding the slower inflation.

“While it always feels good to see markets rally, we think this… is bordering on silly,” he said.

“The market is reacting as if this is the continuance of a multiple-month, downward trend in inflation, and it is not.”

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, added: “Markets appear to be getting slightly ahead of themselves given that the quarantine time in China is still quite long, and that Covid infection rates are rising and not decreasing.”

But London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index ended in the red after official data indicated that the UK economy was probably at the start of a prolonged recession.

“The FTSE’s struggles suggest UK investors are more worried about deteriorating domestic, eurozone and global economies than (they) are hopeful about the US and other central banks easing rate hikes,” noted Fawad Razaqzada, market analyst at City Index trading group.

In the UK, inflation is seen rising further. Currently at 10.1 percent, the Bank of England is forecasting it will hit around 11 percent this year before starting to cool.

– Key figures around 1630 GMT –

London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.8 percent at 7,318.04 points (close)

Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.6 percent at 14,224.86 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.6 percent at 6,594.62 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.6 percent at 3,868.50

New York – Dow: DOWN 0.8 percent at 33,432.14 

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 3.0 percent at 28,263.57 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 7.7 percent at 17,325.66 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 1.7 percent at 3,087.29 (close)

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.1770 from $1.1642 on Thursday

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0328 from $1.0131

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 139.06 yen from 143.15 yen

Euro/pound: UP at 87.72 pence from 87.20 pence

Brent North Sea crude: UP 2.5 percent at $96.04 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate: UP 3.0 percent at $89.06 per barrel

burs/imm/gil

President Joe Biden vowed at UN climate talks on Friday that the United States was on track to slash its carbon emissions, urging all nations to ramp up their own efforts to avert catastrophic global warming.

Biden touted the passage of a massive, $369 billion spending package to green the United States economy as an example for the entire world.

While the US spending on its own renewable energy push has been praised by activists, Washington has come under criticism for falling short on its pledges to financially help developing countries with their own transitions and to cope with intensifying climate-induced impacts.

“The climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security and the very life of the planet,” Biden told an audience at the COP27 in the Egyptian seaside resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

Biden said the United States is “on track” to achieve its pledge of cutting emissions 50-52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030.

“To permanently bend the emissions curve, every nation needs to step up. At this gathering, we must renew and raise our climate ambitions,” he said.

“The United States has acted, everyone has to act. It’s a duty and responsibility of global leadership.”

His speech, which lasted about 22 minutes, was briefly interrupted by unidentified people in the crowd making howling noises and attempting to unfurl a banner protesting fossil fuels.

New research shows just how dauntingly hard it will be to meet the Paris Agreement’s most ambitious goal of capping global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — requiring emissions to be slashed nearly in half by 2030.

The new study — published on Friday in the journal Earth System Science Data — found that CO2 emissions from fossil fuels are on track to rise one percent in 2022 to reach an all-time high.

Biden’s visit to the COP, lasting only a few hours, came three days after US midterm elections that have raised questions about what the result could mean for US climate policy.

Before his speech, Biden met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on the sidelines of COP27, where he raised human rights issues with his host amid concerns over the health of jailed dissident Alaa Abdel Fattah, who is on a hunger strike.

– War ‘enhances urgency’ –

The lightning visit to Egypt marks the start of a week-long trip abroad that will also take him to an ASEAN regional summit in Cambodia at the weekend, before he travels to Indonesia for G20 talks.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has sent energy prices soaring, has raised concerns that solving the climate problem has dropped on the priority list of many countries.

“Russia’s war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels,” Biden said.

In his speech, however, Biden did not mention another issue that has been at the forefront of the COP27 meeting: calls for the United States and other rich polluters to compensate developing countries for the damage caused by natural disasters.

Calling out the United States as “the historic polluter”, Mohamed Adow, founder of the think tank Power Shift Africa, said Washington has been an obstacle to the establishment of a “loss and damage” fund.

The issue was officially placed on the agenda of COP27, with fraught negotiations expected before the meeting ends on November 18.

– ‘Super-Emitter’ –

Germany’s climate envoy, Jennifer Morgan, told reporters that Biden’s attendance at COP27 was a “very good sign” that reassures other countries that “the United States at the highest level takes this issue incredibly seriously”.

US climate envoy John Kerry presented this week a public-private partnership aimed at supporting the transition to renewable energy in developing nations and based on a carbon credit system.

But the plan has been panned by activists wary of firms using these to “offset” their carbon emissions.

The White House announced Friday plans to require federal contractors to set targets to reduce their emissions in line with the Paris Agreement.

It also aims to step up efforts to cut methane emissions — a major contributor to global warming — with a “Super-Emitter Response Programme” that would require companies to act on leaks reported by “credible” third parties.

Biden has also pledged to contribute $11.4 billion to a $100 billion per-year-scheme through which rich countries will help developing nations transition to renewable energies and build climate resilience.

But Democrats may be running out of time to honour that as control of the House of Representatives appears poised to shift to the Republicans from January in the wake of this week’s mid-term elections.