Paris: French authorities last month launched a preliminary investigation into claims that the former archbishop of Paris had "sexually assaulted a vulnerable person", prosecutors said Tuesday.

He claimed that the investigation was launched as a result of a report submitted by the Diocese of Paris. Michel Appétit offered to step down at the end of 2021, following media reports of an intimate relationship with a woman in 2012 before taking office. He has categorically denied the allegations. Pope Francis accepted the resignation.

French broadcaster BFMTV had relations with a defenseless man. According to a source familiar with the matter, the investigation focuses on an "email exchange" between Appetit and the woman, whose consent must be verified due to her mental health.

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The diocese acknowledged it had submitted the report in a statement Tuesday night, but added that it was "not in a position to verify whether the facts in question have been proven or whether they constitute a crime." "

Pastor's attorney, Jean Reinhart, declined to comment. We are not aware of any complaint, so we are unable to comment on the same, he said.

In 2021, a spokesman for the diocese claimed that Apetit had "ambiguous dealings with a person he was very close to," claiming that the relationship was neither romantic nor sexual.

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However, he clarified that the offer to resign "is not an admission of guilt." When Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris was destroyed by fire in April 2019, Apetit was the archbishop.

He appeared frequently on television to express his grief over the tragedy and to raise funds for the restoration project. According to church doctrine, Catholic priests must maintain their celibacy and are expected to abstain from sexual activity.

The publication of a shocking report in October 2021 by an independent commission, which claimed Catholic priests had abused 216,000 children since 1950, has left the French church still in shock.

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Since his election in 2013, the pope has had to deal with a deluge of clergy sex abuse claims. Retired bishop Jean-Pierre Ricard was named a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, after publicly admitting to "reprehensible" acts with a 14-year-old girl in the 1980s. French prosecutors are also looking into the matter.

In a shocking announcement made by the French Catholic Church in November, he was one of 11 former or current French bishops accused of sexual abuse.