FRANCE
National Secular Society (UK)
08 Mar 2016 13:25
Vatican officials face prosecution in France over failure to report sex abuse priest to police
Senior Vatican officials are facing investigation in France over the “non-reporting of crime” and endangering lives, following allegations that clerical sex abuse was not reported to the police.
Father Bernard Preynat was indicted in January 2016 for the alleged abuse of Scouts between 1986 and 1991 and admitted that he sexually abused young Scouts in 1986-1991 in the group which he had run for twenty years.
Prosecutors have now ordered an investigation into senior figures over their “failure to report a crime” after Preynat’s victims said top officials in the Catholic diocese of Lyon, including its Archbishop Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, had failed to report the priest to the police, as required under French law.
In addition, Preynat’s own lawyer told the judge that “the facts had been known by the church authorities since 1991”.
According to AFP, the Vatican had earlier given Cardinal Barbarin its backing, saying it had confidence he would deal with the matter “with great responsibility”. A source close to the cardinal claimed, “Cardinal Barbarin … quite rightly suspended Father Preynat after meeting a first victim and taking advice from Rome, and this, even before a first official complaint was made”.
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