With nocturnality and treachery and after 34 years of service to the order of the Dominicans of the Holy Spirit, the nun Marie Ferréol (57), born Sabine de la Valette, was exclaustrated “without reason” from her community located in Berné, near Lorient , after the visit of Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet. For this reason, a civil court in this French town has condemned this cardinal, the religious community and the apostolic visitors of the Vatican, Jean-Charles Nault and Maylis Desjobert, to compensate the nun with more than 200,000 euros. Since her ‘unfair dismissal’ in October 2020, Sister Marie had been living destitute.
In its ruling, the court justifies its decision in that "it is not proven that the decree of exclaustration, signed by Cardinal Ouellet (...) had received any papal approval."
The union association of the Community of Dominicans of the Holy Spirit – a traditionalist court order within the Catholic Church – will have to pay 33,622 euros to Sister Marie for the duty of relief. The civil court also condemned this religious community to pay its former member 182,400 euros for material damages and 10,000 euros more for the moral damage caused, for the payment of which it makes both Cardinal Ouellet and the apostolic visitors jointly responsible. The convicts have already expressed their intention to appeal the ruling.
In the letter that the cardinal delivered to the nun, and among the reasons for her expulsion, the “bad spirit” demonstrated by the nun was stated, which was characterized by “systematic criticism (...), a spirit of fomenting dissent internal, public manifestations of resistance or disagreement, attacks on the truth, destructive talks and even, at times, manipulation” of other religious women.
Furthermore, the order insisted that “this conflict occurs after the expulsion by Pope Francis of Sabine de La Valette from religious life. This decision was made by the Sovereign Pontiff after the apostolic visit led by religious visitors from outside our Institute. The apostolic visit confirmed, through numerous testimonies, seriously inappropriate behavior by Sabine de La Valette within our Institute.”
However, during the hearing, the judge expressed her surprise at not being able to have access to the Vatican's accusation file. In this sense, Bertrand Ollivier, lawyer for the two apostolic visitors, who went to investigate in the community, settled the issue alleging that "there is no right of access to the file in canonical matters."
In addition, the congregation handed out certificates supposedly written by around thirty nuns of the 90 who currently remain in the congregation discrediting Sister Marie. However, it was later found that half of these certificates were written by nuns who had never been with Marie Ferréol.
Furthermore, 35 nuns who did live in community with her refused, despite numerous pressures from their hierarchy, to write certificates. against her.
The nun had lived without incident in this community since 1987, but starting in 2011, things got worse, when Sister Marie Ferréol reported “serious abuses and events” within it, according to her lawyer Adeline Le Gouvello.
Furthermore, the court highlights that the association did not provide any evidence to demonstrate that the exclaustration had been carried out in compliance with its own statutes. And he adds that Sister María “was also unable to prepare morally and materially for having to immediately leave her community and her profession, in the space of a few hours, without ever returning.”
It must be remembered that Cardinal Marc Ouellet is not just anyone within the Vatican, since in 2020 he was prefect of the Vatican episcopal dicastery and therefore number three of the Holy See, he resigned from this high position in January of this year, officially “due to the age limit,” but had been accused of sexual assault in Quebec.
