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Anger over return of ‘sex abuse’ priest

Protests are being planned by parents in the northern Italian town of Casirate d'Adda, in Bergamo, after it emerged that a priest who plea-bargained a suspended sentence for having sex with two boys would take part in a week-long parish holiday.

Published: 12 July 2013 15:02 CEST
Anger over return of 'sex abuse' priest
Father Luigi Mantia was a priest at a church in Casirate d'Adda. Photo: Georces/Wikicommons

Father Luigi Mantia plea bargained the two-year sentence in 2009 after being convicted of having sex with the boys, aged 8 and 12 at the time, Bergamo news reported. Though he has always maintained his innocence, he is reported to have hurried the bargain just before the case closed.

At the time, he was pastor of a church in the town but is now “on loan” to another church within Bergamo.

He is expected to accompany his former parishioners on the mountain holiday, a move that has provoked outrage among parents in Casirate.

Two meetings were reported to be held last night ahead of protests.

The Diocese of Cremona has reassured parents that the priest “will not go into the mountains with children,” Bergamo news reported.

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SEX

France taken to European Court over divorce ruling that woman had ‘marital duty’ to have sex with husband

A case has been brought against France at the European Court of Human Rights by a woman who lost a divorce case after judges ruled against her because she refused to have sex with her husband.

Published: 19 March 2021 16:40 CET
France taken to European Court over divorce ruling that woman had 'marital duty' to have sex with husband
Photo: Frederick Florin/AFP

The woman, who has not been named, has brought the case with the backing of two French feminist groups, arguing that the French court ruling contravened human rights legislation by “interference in private life” and “violation of physical integrity”.

It comes after a ruling in the Appeals Court in Versailles which pronounced a fault divorce in 2019 because of her refusal to have sex with her husband.

READ ALSO The divorce laws in France that foreigners need to be aware of

The court ruled that the facts of the case “established by the admission of the wife, constitute a serious and renewed violation of the duties and obligations of marriage making intolerable the maintenance of a shared life”.

Feminist groups Fondation des femmes (Women’s Foundation) and Collectif féministe contre le viol (Feminist Collective against Rape) have backed her appeal, deploring the fact that French justice “continues to impose the marital duty” and “thus denying the right of women to consent or not to sexual relations”.

“Marriage is not and should not be a sexual servitude,” the joint statement says, pointing out that in 47 percent of the 94,000 recorded rapes and attempted rapes per year, the aggressor is the spouse or ex-spouse of the victim.

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