SHARE
COPY LINK

ABUSE

French priest jailed for sexual abuse

A French priest was Friday sentenced to five years, two without parole, for sexually assaulting four young female parishioners, one of whom was just nine when the offences started, and embezzling 100,000 euros to pay one of his victims.

French priest jailed for sexual abuse
Unrelated file photo. Photo: AFP

The trial was held behind closed doors at Colmar Criminal Court, in northeast France, which publicly announced the sentence late Friday.

The 60-year-old cleric, who will have to spend at least two years behind bars and be under restrictions for the rest of his term, could have faced up to 10 years in prison.

The priest will also have to undergo psychological treatment, which he has already started, according to his lawyers.

Under the judgement, he is forbidden from contacting his victims or any activity involving minors. He is also barred from staying in the Alsace region, where the offences were committed.

His sentence was lighter than that sought by the public prosecutor, who had asked for four years in prison followed by three years under a supervision order.

The trial was held behind closed doors at the request of three of the four victims, who were minors at the start of the offences, the youngest just nine.

The attacks, which continued after three of the victims were adults, took place between 2001 and 2006 and between 2011 and 2016.

The priest, who was remanded in custody for three months at the start of the case in September 2016, “bitterly regrets the crimes that he has acknowledged (…) and offers his apology to the victims and to people (…) injured by such intolerable acts,” his lawyer Thierry Moser said in a statement.

He had admitted to having diverted more than 100,000 euros in money destined for the Church and transferred it to one of the victims, then an adult, in exchange for sexual favours.

In total, he paid her more than 240,000 euros, including a portion of his personal wealth.

The victim, now 29, had been charged with “concealment of breach of trust” but was released after the court found there was insufficient evidence to prove she knew the source of the money.

France's Catholic Church has been roiled in recent years by claims against priests which have come to light in the wake of a global move by victims of abuse to come forward with evidence.

READ ALSO: France's top cardinal to go on trial over child abuse cover up

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.

RELIGION

Tensions mount in German Catholic Church over abuse report

Pressure increased on Friday on a powerful German Catholic archbishop who has for months blocked the publication of a report about alleged sexual abuse of minors by members of his diocese.

Tensions mount in German Catholic Church over abuse report
Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, Archbishop of Koin, at the autumn plenary assembly of the German Bishops' Conference in the City Palace. September 2020: Picture alliance / DPA | Arne Dedert

In a rare public rebuke, the diocese council of the western city of Cologne, which groups clergy and laypeople, sharply criticised Archbishop Rainer Maria Woelki, saying he had “completely failed as a moral authority”.

“We find ourselves in the biggest crisis that the Church has ever experienced,” Tim Kurzbach, head of the council, said in a statement.

“Those responsible must finally also take responsibility. We need clarity now. Otherwise we have no chance of getting out of this misery.”

Woelki, a conservative who has resisted Church reform efforts, has faced criticism for months for refusing to allow the publication of an independent study on abuse committed by clergy in his diocese, the country's largest, between 1975 and 2018.

Victims have expressed anger and disappointment about his stance.

Woelki has justified his decision by citing a right to privacy of the alleged perpetrators accused in the report, carried out by a Munich law firm, and what he called a lack of independence on the part of some researchers.   

In early November, the diocese of the western city of Aachen published its own study prepared by the same law firm.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference and released in 2018 showed that 1,670 clergymen had committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014.

However its authors said the actual number of victims was almost certainly much higher.

The revelations, which mirror paedophile scandals in Australia, Chile, France, Ireland and the United States, prompted Cardinal Reinhard Marx, a prominent reformer, to apologise on behalf of the German Catholic Church.

The Church currently pays victims an average sum of 5,000 euros ($6,067) “in recognition of their suffering”, as well as covering their therapy fees.

In September 2020, German bishops agreed that victims would be entitled to payouts of up to €50,000 each and an independent committee would be set up to examine complaints and decide on payouts from January 1st, 2021.

READ ALSO: German Catholic Church to pay abuse victims up to €50,000

SHOW COMMENTS