The Vendée Assize Court sentenced the 55-year-old religious, member of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X, to the maximum sentence, with a two-thirds security sentence, socio-judicial follow-up and obligation of care.
His victims, sixteen boys and eleven girls, were mostly between twelve and fifteen years old at the time of the events. Some of the rapes and assaults were committed against several children from the same family and in the parents’ home. The traditionalist priest Pierre de Maillard was sentenced Friday June 2 to twenty years of imprisonment by the Assize Court of Vendée, which judged him behind closed doors since May 22 for rape and sexual assault on a total of 27 minors.
The court accompanied his conviction with a two-thirds security sentence, in accordance with the requisitions of the general counsel, Emmanuelle Lepissier, who had demanded the maximum sentence on Thursday against this priest of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X. (not recognized by the Catholic Church).
On his release from prison, the religious will be subject to socio-judicial monitoring for ten years, a period during which he will also be subject to an obligation of care. Any activity with minors will be forbidden to him and he will not be able to stay in the departments of Vendée and Charente-Maritime.
“This maximum sentence does not remove your part of humanity”, told him the president of the assize court after the verdict was announced. Before the jury retired to deliberate, the 55-year-old priest said, in his words reported by the lawyers: “I apologize, sorry, I apologize, sorry”.
Pierre de Maillard was stationed at the Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire priory in Saint-Germain-de-Prinçay (Vendée) when the case broke out in October 2020, three months after the first two complaints were filed.
Other victims then quickly made themselves known. The La Roche-sur-Yon prosecutor’s office mentioned 19 victims in 2020. Nearly a dozen others will be brought to light during the investigation.
The Priestly Society of Saint Pius X (FSSPX) filed a civil action in this case. Founded in 1970 by Marcel Lefebvre (1905-1991), it rejects “Rome with a neo-modernist and neo-Protestant tendency” born, according to her, from the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) and celebrates its masses in Latin.
