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A Quebec Superior Court judge has ruled in favour of Cardinal Marc Ouellet in a defamation lawsuit brought against Paméla Groleau, ordering her to pay him $100,000 in damages.
Ouellet filed the lawsuit after Groleau named him in a 2022 class-action lawsuit alleging sexual misconduct by members of the Archdiocese of Quebec.
Groleau had alleged meeting the cardinal on several occasions between 2008 and 2010 while she was training or working as a lay pastoral agent for the Catholic Church and that Ouellet had engaged in various forms of inappropriate conduct toward her, including unwanted touching.
Groleau first reported her allegations anonymously in 2008 to a church advisory committee and later in a complaint directed to Pope Francis in 2021, which was rejected in 2022 — the same year she joined the class action.
Justice Martin Castonguay dismissed the accusations, finding Groleau’s version of events were not credible.
In his decision Monday, Castonguay wrote Groleau acted “recklessly or even maliciously” toward the cardinal and did not act as a “reasonable person” would.
Castonguay wrote that Groleau, dissatisfied with the handling of her complaint to Pope Francis, chose to alter her version of events to attract public attention.
The judge noted that the evidence proved beyond a doubt that the allegations were unfounded and that Groleau herself eventually said she only considered one of the alleged interactions as sexual assault.
“Regarding that specific incident, Groleau admits to having altered her account to sate that Cardinal Ouellet touched her buttocks, fully aware that the average person would interpret this as touching the curve of the buttocks,” Castonguay wrote, “which was not the case in reality, nor in her earlier versions.”
Groleau, he said, showed no regard for Ouellet’s rights, including his right to a good reputation, when she accused him of sexual misconduct in August 2022.
He said damage to Ouellet’s reputation was compounded by the fact that the class action against the Archdiocese of Quebec overwhelmingly involved clergy or lay people accused of being pedophiles.
The judge also noted that Ouellet had committed to donating any sum received from the suit toward combating sexual abuse suffered by Indigenous people in Canada.