Former US SSPX District Superior Sentenced To 1-Year In Prison For Molesting Multiple Underage Boys

The former U.S. district superior for the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) was sentenced to one year in a French jail after admitting in April to having molested seven underage boys between 2002 and 2018 in France, Spain and Switzerland.

French outlets reported that a criminal court in Gap sentenced Father Arnaud Rostand, 58, to 12 months in prison with deferred incarceration. He is also required to undergo four years of “socio-juridical” monitoring and psychiatric treatment, as well as provide compensation for his victims.

Rostand served as the SSPX’s U.S. District Superior from August 2008 through August 2014 per the request of then-SSPX Superior General Bishop Bernard Fellay. Father Davide Pagliarani of Italy succeeded Fellay for a 12-year term in 2018.

Ordained in 1993, Rostand led a school in Paris between August 1998 and August 2006. He was named District Superior of Canada between August 2006 and August 2008 before serving the U.S. District.

In court, Rostand said that he informed the SSPX via letter in 1998 that he had an “attraction” to children. He stated that he informed the SSPX about this again in 2000, then in 2006 and 2013.

LifeSite reporter Michael Haynes previously attempted to contact SSPX headquarters in Menzingen, Switzerland for clarity on the matter but did not receive a response...

Rostand was arrested in December 2023, having been based in the Monastery of Our Lady of Montgardin in the Western Alps since 2021, apparently on orders of Pagliarani. The monastery has been used as a place of seclusion for priests (including disgraced SSPX clergy) to dedicate themselves to a contemplative life.

As reported by LifeSite’s Haynes, abuse group Collectif des Victimes FSSPX has stated that the “measures” the SSPX took against Rostand “were ineffective, contrary to what is claimed, as the touching continued until 2018. This was the year in which Superior General Davide Pagliarani put him back in contact with the faithful in Menzingen, after four years on communications assignments. We had to wait until 2019 for psychiatric follow-up, 21 years after the first warnings!”

Rostand’s sentencing comes on the heels of the May 28 arrest of another French SSPX priest, Fr. Jean-Luc Radier, who is alleged to have abused a pre-teenage boy in the 1990s.

This journalist previously reported on allegations and actual instances of abuse by priests within the SSPX in the United States several years ago.