“My name has been besmirched, while my accuser remains anonymous”. This is the comment of the French bishop, Jean-Michel Di Falco, following the decision taken by the public prosecutor of the French Republic to close his case. The auxiliary bishop of Paris, former spokesman of the French Bishops’ Conference, had been accused of “sexual abuse” for alleged incidents dating back to 1972 when he was 25 years old and headmaster of a Parisian lycèe. The accusations against him were made by a 41-year-old man whose identity has not been revealed. After Bishop Di Falco was subjected to a lengthy interrogation by the Juvenile Court in Paris on the afternoon of 19 March, the public prosecutor of the Republic decided to close the case. In a press release issued on 21 March, Di Falco declared: “The closing of the case is due not only to the prescription of the offence but also to the failure to ascertain the facts. What matters is to establish what is true or false”. In the days in which news of the accusations made against him was circulating in the French press, Bishop Di Falco had immediately issued a writ for defamation and protested his innocence, with the support of the diocese of Paris.
