PARIS (FRANCE)
La Croix International
July 5, 2019
By Céline Hoyeau
Bernard Preynat was found guilty of committing criminal sex acts against minors under 16 years of age
Bernard Preynat is no longer a priest, according to the verdict handed down on July 4 by the Archdiocese of Lyon ecclesiastical court.
The former French Scout chaplain of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon was accused of sexual assaults on more than 70 Scouts in the 1970s-1980s.
‘Finally’
It’s been years of waiting but the satisfaction is evident among Preynat’s victims.
The development should have been taken more than 30 years ago, said Didier Bardiau, also kown as François Devaux, “with his first confession.”
Preynat was “found guilty of committing criminal acts of a sexual nature against minors under 16 years of age” and dismissed from the clerical state.
This is “the maximum penalty provided for by Church law in such a case,” said the ecclesiastical tribunal – made up of three priests – responsible for studying his criminal case, in its verdict.
It is justified, added the statement, “in view of the facts and their recurrence, the large number of victims, the fact that Father Bernard Preynat abused the authority conferred on him by his position within the Scout group he had founded and which he had led since its creation.”
The procedure had been suspended for one year
Already suspended from all ministry and sacraments, Preynat, soon to be 75, has one month to appeal to the court of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
This decision comes after several years of twists and turns. Once the decision obtained from Rome had been lifted, the Archdiocese of Lyon had opened, at the request of the Vatican, an administrative canonical procedure.
But this one presented a double pitfall: The final decision was left to the Archbishop of Lyon, judge and party in the case; and it did not include the question of financial compensation.
For obscure reasons – the diocese claiming that it could not interfere with civil justice – the proceeding had been suspended for one year. It finally resumed in August 2018, this time with an independent ecclesiastical court and the possibility of paving the way for financial compensation.
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