Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Orléans, Loiret, France · 2018

France: emeritus Bishop of Orléans convicted for failing to report a scout chaplain's abuse

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

the emeritus Bishop of Orléans, convicted of failing to report to the authorities the paedocriminal conduct of a priest of his diocese

Organization

Diocese of Orléans, France, Tribunal correctionnel d'Orléans

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

As with the Bayeux conviction, the authority at issue is episcopal rather than direct. The bishop's office carried both the knowledge and the discretion — what the diocese learned about a priest, and whether that ever reached the civil authorities. The priest concerned held a scout chaplaincy, an office that places an adult with children away from parents and outside parish oversight, which is the same structure the archive records in the Preynat case in Lyon. The conviction addresses the decision not to report, not the abuse itself.

Pastoral or clerical authority
Institutional obedience or isolation

Scope decision

The bishop is named because the conviction is a matter of public record; no victim is named. The offence is failure to report, NOT participation in abuse, and the record must not be read as a finding that the bishop abused anyone. APPELLATE STATUS IS `unchecked`, not `none-found`: the source consulted does not state whether Fort appealed, and no appellate search was run. That distinction matters here more than usual — the third French bishop commonly listed with these two, Philippe Barbarin, WAS convicted at first instance and then acquitted on appeal, so an unchecked first-instance conviction in this specific category must not be presented as settled. Pierre de Castelet's own conviction is not detailed in the source consulted and is not asserted here. Companion record: the 2001 conviction of Pierre Pican, Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2018-11-22 · conviction and sentence at first instance

Tribunal correctionnel, Orléans, France. André Fort, emeritus Bishop of Orléans, was convicted of non-dénonciation d'actes pédophiles — failure to report paedophile acts — and sentenced to eight months' imprisonment, suspended. The prosecution arose from his failure to report the conduct of abbé Pierre de Castelet, a former chaplain to the Scouts d'Europe and parish priest of Lorris, in respect of matters dating from July 1993; three of Castelet's victims lodged complaints against Fort in 2016.

Documented coercion mechanisms

episcopal authority over the diocese in which the offending priest served
knowledge of the offending retained within the diocese rather than reported
the priest concerned holding a scout chaplaincy, an office giving structured access to children outside the parish

Cited record

Sources

encyclopaedic summary reference work 'André Fort', Wikipédia (French), accessed 29 July 2026, summarising the judgment of 22 November 2018 of the Tribunal correctionnel d'Orléans.: Records that Fort was condemned on 22 November 2018 to «huit mois de prison avec sursis» for «non-dénonciation d'actes pédophiles», in respect of the conduct of abbé Pierre de Castelet, «ancien aumônier des scouts d'Europe et curé de Lorris», concerning matters from July 1993, three of whose victims lodged complaints against Fort in 2016. The article does not state whether an appeal was brought.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Fort Corpus classification: encyclopaedic-summary; evidentiary role: conviction-and-sentence report. A reference work, not a primary judicial document — flagged for upgrade.
Retrieval: 2026-07-29 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-29 (French Catholic coverage gap; conviction, date, offence and sentence taken from the cited summary; appellate position expressly NOT established and recorded as unchecked rather than inferred)

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