(LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican has appointed pro-LGBT Bishop Joseph Maria Bonnemain to investigate the sexual abuse cases and their alleged cover-up by clerics in Switzerland.
Earlier this year, the former vicar general of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg, Father Nicolas Betticher, brought forth accusations against several Swiss bishops, the local newspaper Blick reported.
One unnamed active member of the Swiss bishops’ Conference (SBK) is accused of sexual harassment of a teenager, while three priests in the diocese of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg are accused of sexually molesting adolescents.
The bishop of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg, Charles Morerod, is accused of promoting sexually abusive priests while knowing about the serious accusations. Betticher accused multiple other active and former bishops, including Jean-Marie Lovey, Alain de Reamey, and Jean-Claude Périsset, of ignoring or covering up the abuse cases.
On September 13, it was revealed that the unnamed member of the SBK is the abbot of the Territorial Abbey of Saint-Maurice, Jean César Scarcella, who announced in a press release that he would suspend his office until the end of the investigation. Scarcella is also the Abbot Primate of the Congregation of Augustinian Canons.
Betticher reported these allegations to the apostolic nuncio in Switzerland, Archbishop Martin Krebs, in May 2023. The Vatican responded by making the heterodox Bishop Bonnemain a “special investigator” into the alleged abuse cases.
Bishop Bonnemain: a pro-LGBT bishop who enjoys the trust of Pope Francis
Bonnemain was appointed by Pope Francis as Bishop of Chur in February 2021 as a “bridgebuilder.”
The Swiss Opus Dei bishop is well-known for his heterodox positions. He expressed support for same-sex unions and knowingly gave Holy Communion to non-Catholics during his ordination ceremony. Bonnemain furthermore abolished the office of exorcist in his diocese last year, saying that there are “normal solutions” for most problems and that he has “never been confronted with a person” that needed a major exorcism.
Appointing Bonnemain to investigate the alleged abuse cases is a curious decision by the Vatican since the prelate has been accused by priests in his diocese of implementing “LGBT ideology under the guise of preventing sexual assault” by issuing a pro-LGBT code of conduct that forbids priests to express a “sweeping negative assessment” of homosexual acts and other “allegedly unbiblical behavior.” Like the heretical German Synodal Way, Bonnemain seems to be using the sexual abuse crisis as an excuse to undermine the Church’s doctrine on sexuality.
The Swiss bishop has also shown a tendency to be very lenient with dissenters from Church teaching, evidenced by his refusal to punish the liturgical abuse of two women who attempted to concelebrate at a Mass and another recent case, where he failed to correct a laywoman working in his diocese for publicly promoting “legal pornography.”
READ: Heterodox Swiss bishop declines to punish women who attempted to concelebrate at Mass
Former apostolic nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, commented on the appointment of Bonnemain on X (formerly Twitter).
In the behavior of the Holy See it is impossible not to find the most absolute and obscene demonstration of corruption.
Monsignor Joseph Marie Bonnemain, bishop of Chur, ultra-progressive and member of Opus Dei, seems to be more attentive to his physical appearance than to the… pic.twitter.com/3WV3EqaJyA
— Arcivescovo Carlo Maria Viganò (@CarloMVigano) September 11, 2023
“Monsignor Joseph Marie Bonnemain, bishop of Chur, ultra-progressive and member of Opus Dei, seems to be more attentive to his physical appearance than to the salvation of his soul; he makes no secret of his total subservience to the LGBTQ+ ideology and says he is in favor of pornography,” Viganò wrote. “Who better than him to investigate allegations of serious sexual scandals by members of the Swiss episcopate? It is like sending Herod to investigate the Massacre of the Innocents.”
“The pattern is always the same: the person appointed by Bergoglio for a position of responsibility must be the most corrupt and unsuitable for that role, the one who will cause the most devastating damage, the one with the most scandalous conflict of interest,” the Italian prelate continued.
“They provoke us to our faces: ‘We do what we want.’ Bergoglio’s ‘synodal church’ arrogantly shows itself in all its depraved and tyrannical nature.”