PRIEST ACCUSED OF CHILD PORN REASSIGNED TO NEW CHURCH

By Janene Van Jaarsveldt
NL Times
July 20, 2015

http://www.nltimes.nl/2015/07/20/priest-accused-of-child-porn-reassigned-to-new-church/

Pastor Dominique Donders from Veldhoven has been reassigned as a chaplain in the Sint Anthonis municipality in Brabant. The priest was convicted and later acquitted of the possession of child pornography.

According to NOS, the diocese and parish believe that Donders deserves a second chance and he will soon preside over funerals and celebrations. The Sint Anthonis church appointed Donders at the request of the diocese. “Comments can certainly be made on his behavior in a moral sense”, the parish writes on its website. “But his pastoral integrity is not fundamentally at stake.”

In 2013 the court sentenced the priest with a fine for downloading pictures of young nude models to make an album. According to the court, the girls in the 28 pictures were underage, based on their looks and appearance. Earlier this year the pries was acquitted. The court had to rule based on black and white scans of the pictures, because the original photos were accidentally destroyed. Based solely on the scanned pictures, the court could no longer say with certainty that the girls were underage and the court ruled that the allegations were not proven.