BELGIUM
7 News
Brussels (AFP) – A Belgian court on Thursday ordered the Archbishop of Brussels to pay 10,000 euros in damages to a former choir boy subjected to sexual abuse by a priest.
The plaintiff Joel Devillet, now 42, was raped by a priest in southern Belgium between 1987 and 1991. The earliest abuse happened when he was 14 years old and has left him with serious psychological problems.
In 1996 the victim denounced his violator in front of an internal tribunal of the Belgian Catholic Church, which advised him to seek therapy.
Devillet failed in a bid to get a criminal conviction and so launched, and won, a civil suit claiming damages from the priest involved.
He also filed a suit to demand compensation from Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard, the Primate of Belgium, who at the time of the abuse was in charge of the central Namur diocese.
The Liege court of appeal on Thursday said the bishop, who will hand his resignation to the pope when he reaches the maximum permitted age of 75 next month, did not take sufficient measures to deal with the abusive priest, and was told to pay the 10,000 euros ($10,800) to Devillet.
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