Another Bishop appoints a convicted abuser to position of trust and responsibility in his Diocese. Madness reigns in France.
Angers: Priest sentenced for child pornography while serving at the chancellery? Yes, it seems
We have been informed that Toulouse does not have the unfortunate monopoly on appointing priests convicted of abuse to diocesan official positions. In the Diocese of Angers, a priest convicted of possessing child pornography remains on the presbyteral council, serves as an archivist, and has just been appointed ecclesiastical notary.
This priest is Father Joseph Renaud, who on June 10, 2014, was taken into police custody, then pretrial detention, for posting child pornography on a cloud from a computer at the parish of Saint Martin des Champs in Angers. At the time, he was "diocesan coordinator of the Workers' Mission, diocesan chaplain of Catholic Workers' Action, and chaplain to the deaf and hard of hearing," and had just been appointed parish priest of Trélazé.
He admitted the facts and was suspended from all public ministry by Bishop Delmas, who was already a bishop. In 2017, the court sentenced him to two years in prison, four of which were suspended.
In 2025, Father Joseph Renaud was appointed Delegate for Clergy Social Protection. He was also responsible for various functions in the diocese:
Diocesan Chaplain: Sharing and Encounters
Chaplain: Notre-Dame des Gardes Monastery
Assistant Archivist: Diocesan Archives
Delegate: Marriage Office
Notary: Chancery
Elected Member: Management Committee of the Saint-Martin Mutual Fund
Member: Presbyteral Council
He is also one of the three members of the presbyteral council appointed by Bishop Delmas, as we learn from the decree of October 13, 2024.
Incidentally, removing a deviant priest from the public ministry and appointing him archivist is a falsely good idea, as the sad experience of the Diocese of Verdun with Father Thierion, ultimately banned from all ministry by Bishop Gusching a few months before his death, reminds us.
The Jesuit Patrick Goujon, one of his victims, recently recalled that this priest had been removed from the public ministry and appointed archivist, which did not prevent him from continuing his abuses – several hundred victims (!) have reportedly been recorded.
Canon law: "notaries must be of unimpaired reputation and above all suspicion."
However, as canon law reiterates, "the chancellor and notaries must be of unimpaired reputation and above all suspicion." This is hardly compatible with the possession of child pornography.
Patrick Goujon explains the situation in his column, which concerns Father Spina, who was appointed chancellor of Toulouse after being convicted of rape of a minor, but which applies equally to a priest convicted of child pornography:
"Canon law does not judge conscience (the famous internal forum), it rules on the public conditions of exercising a discreet but sensitive function. […] Here, there is no question of rumor: the judgment has been rendered, the sentence served."
"To make informed decisions, the reputation of the Abbot is no longer intact, synonymous with "intact." […] The sanction imposed and the sentence served do not restore reputation, in the sense that it does not prejudge the future but simply records what has been. An amnesty would be needed to erase the infamous memory, which forgiveness is not, and which amnesty never fully achieves."
Is Father Emmanuel Bouchaud, who has been serving as both Vicar General and Chancellor of the diocese since 2024, unaware of Canon Law? Certainly, in September he will be the sole Vicar General since the second is leaving his position and relinquishing the chancellery—a layman, Jean-Pierre Audoyer, has been appointed—but he too cannot be unaware of canon law for his colleagues…
Duties and Office of Notaries
Canon law also specifies the obligations of notaries:
"The office of notaries is:
1. to draw up legal acts and documents concerning decrees, ordinances, obligations, or other acts requiring their services;
2. to faithfully draw up in writing the minutes of cases and sign them, indicating the place, day, month, and year;
3. to provide, in compliance with the rules, the acts or documents taken from the registers and legitimately requested, and to declare the conformity of their copies to the original."
A Diocesan chancellor confirms that a notary can prepare a marriage annulment—or validate acts of a canonical process, for example, when a priest or a lay person on ecclesiastical mission has erred, committed abuse, or shared illegal content.
A question of trust in Church institutions
The appointment by Bishop Delmas of a priest tried and convicted of child pornography appears incomprehensible and probably illicit from the point of view of canon law. Above all, it once again raises the question that the faithful—in Angers and elsewhere—may have regarding Church institutions and those that deal with matters of justice.
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