Bishop Emmanuel Lafont was sentenced by the Vatican in late October 2022 after a canonical inquiry was launched in April 2021. According to consistent sources, the bishop emeritus of Guyana would have been excluded from any service: he is forbidden from all pastoral activities, from wearing his episcopal regalia (mitre, crosier, etc.), from making contact with friends in Guyana and with young migrants. The sentence, handed down by the Dicastery of Bishops – one of the Vatican’s nine “ministries” – also includes house arrest in a monastery in mainland France.
“A moving thought for the alleged victims”
Aware of the canonical decree against Bishop Emmanuel Lafont, the Association for Truth, Transparency and Morality in the Diocese of Guyana “welcomed” the “sanctions decided by the Vatican”. “Without taking legal action against established facts, the content of which we are not aware of, it seems important to us to have a moving thought for these alleged victims who told us about their suffering,” reacted their president, the teacher Patrick Louis-Ferdinand. This group of Guyana Catholics was formed in late 2020, a few weeks after the resignation of Bishop Emmanuel Lafont, to try to “shed light on how the Diocese of Cayenne works”.
This sentence is the result of a canonical inquiry against Monsignor Lafont conducted by Monsignor David Macaire, Archbishop of Fort-de-France in Martinique and the ecclesiastical province who has authority over the Diocese of Cayenne. This Church inquiry was launched following the publication of an inquiry by La Croix which, in April 2021, exposed the climate of fragility and division in the Diocese of Guyana, rocked by two complaints filed with the Cayenne Police Department against Bishop Emmanuel Lafont. One for abuse of weakness, filed by a young Haitian asylum seeker, and the other for moral harassment, filed by a former diocese employee. The 27-year-old Haitian asylum seeker testified to investigators that he was placed in the diocese in exchange for sexual services to Bishop Lafont, then Bishop of Cayenne.
An investigation was initiated before the civil court
According to the newspaper Marianne, which carried out the investigation in September 2022, two employees of the diocese also testified that they had knowledge of sexual relations between Emmanuel Lafont and the young men he hosted in the diocese. Facts the bishop categorically denies, even during his canonical process, admitting only “a lack of prudence” when hosting young men in his diocese.
Convicted by the Church’s judiciary, Monsignor Lafont remains innocent before the civil courts that are taking their course: he is the target of a preliminary investigation by the Cayenne Public Prosecutor’s Office on charges of aggravated human trafficking, aiding and abetting illegal residence and aggravated breach of trust.
When he arrived in Guyana in 2004, Bishop Lafont enjoyed a solid reputation. Blessed by his thirteen years in apartheid South Africa, the “Priest of Soweto” was warmly welcomed by the diocese’s Catholics. In 2019, the Bishop Emeritus attended the Amazon Synod in Rome and initiated the French edition of the final exhortation “Dear Amazons” signed by the Pope. The image he conveyed of the Church, close and warm, secured him a lot of support for a long time, in the Vatican and in the media.