Request filed with the Valais Cantonal Court in favor of Roland Jaquenoud – Swiss Catholic Portal

A request for the reinstatement of Canon Roland Jaquenoud as a teacher at the Lycée-Collège de Saint-Maurice has been filed with the Valais Cantonal Court. The information was confirmed to the ATS on January 14, 2025, by the head of the Valais Education Service Jean-Philippe Lonfat. A petition to this effect had already been launched online in May 2024.

Canon Roland Jaquenoud, prior of the Abbey, was incriminated in November 2023 in Focusan RTS show. An anonymous testimony reported a sexual relationship in 2003 with a novice, when he was master of novices and therefore in a position of authority.

At the time of the events, the matter had been taken in hand by the Vatican, which then sent an emissary to the abbey. Rome ruled that it was a consensual relationship between two adults. The case was settled according to the canonical provisions relating to the violation of the vow of chastity. Roland Jaquenoud was then removed from the novitiate. He then left for a mission to Kazakhstan, where he remained until 2015.

The matter picks up in 2023

On his return to Valais, the canon was named prior of the Abbey of St-Maurice, the highest position at the abbey after that of Father-Abbot. When Father-Abbot Jean Scarcella, under canonical investigation for sexual abuse, withdrew from his functions on September 13, 2023, Roland Jaquenoud was called upon to temporarily replace him. But faced with the scandal, he was in turn suspended ten days later, by Roman decision, from the provisional direction of the Abbey.

An apostolic delegate, invested with the power of Father-Abbot, has since been assigned to the Abbey of St-Maurice. This is Canon Jean-Michel Girard, former provost of Grand-Saint-Bernard. Canon Roland Jaquenoud, for his part, is in a friendly community while waiting to resume a ministry.

Fired from his teaching position

The questioning of the responsibilities entrusted to Roland Jaquenoud, however, went beyond the strict framework of the Abbey. The canon was suspended in November 2023 from his position as a Greek and Latin teacher at the Lycée-Collège de St-Maurice. He was then dismissed in 2024 by the Education Service, even before the end of the investigation by the Valais public prosecutor.

Indeed, it was only in October 2024 that a classification order was issued by the Valais courts regarding Canon Jaquenoud, due to the absence of a complaint against him and criminally reprehensible behavior.

A support group

A support group was formed around the canon. Its members consider his dismissal to be an unfair decision. Among them, Tatiana Taillefert, who studied at the University of Lausanne with the canon. She recalls that no criminal complaint was ever filed against him. “His image was misused to illustrate the investigation into pedophile abuse at Saint-Maurice Abbey.”

With a few friends, she launched an online petition in May 2024, which has collected 211 signatures to date. “I ask that his dismissal, which sanctions an act alleged without any certainty more than 20 years ago and which does not fall under criminal law, be canceled out of respect for the presumption of innocence,” says the text.

The petitioners demand the reinstatement of Roland Jacquenoud in the Education Service. An administrative request was also filed to this effect in January 2025 at the Valais Cantonal Court. (cath.ch/ag/arc/lb)