In late January, we learned that a priest was suspected of sexual abuse of young Scouts in the diocese of Lyon and was placed in custody. Acts committed there over 25 years, and emerged as a result of complaints filed since May 2015. Friday, parquet Lyon has ordered a preliminary investigation for “failing to report a crime “and” endangering the lives of others “on the sidelines of this case, the facts of which occurred between 1986 and 1991.
It was opened as a result of an alert victims, involving several officials of the diocese which Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, whom they accuse of failing to give judicial past behavior of the priest. One of the victims confirmed to AFP he filed a series of complaints against the Primate of the Gauls, two diocesan personalities but also Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith as Cardinal Barbarin consulted about Father Bernard Preynat and his secretary.
If the investigation prosecutors expressly aimed at any of these figures, it represents a blow to the Lyon Church faces a media storm since the revelation of this old pedophilia.
Omerta in the diocese
The Cardinal Barbarin noted “with severity” the opening of this investigation, ensuring that he and the diocese would cooperate “with serenity and confidence with the law” by providing investigators “all information available to them to shed light on these events, including the complexity and seniority require a cautious approach. ”
A statement from the diocese says that in this case, Cardinal Barbarin “acted with extreme responsibility + +, as recalled February 19, 2016 the Vatican spokesman” . “The Cardinal Barbarin wishes to recall that it was Archbishop of Lyon at the material time (Bishop Albert Decourtray has been from 1981 to 1994, editor’s note) and he never made any covered pedophilia, “it added. “The case is ongoing. It is rather positive. These are the questions we wanted to ask,” said for his part told AFP one of the victims, François Devaux. “There are people who knew and did nothing. Is this acceptable? People need to know that this is a crime.”
Suspected sexual assault on young scouts there over 25 years, the Preynat priest who left his parish Roannais end of August 2015, suspended by the diocese after consulting the Vatican, acknowledged the facts to the police. It was also under the status of assisted witness to the rapes he confessed in custody.
The embarrassment of Cardinal Barbarin
According to his lawyer, Frederick Doyez, the septuagenarian told the judge “the facts were known by the ecclesiastical authorities since 1991″, when he was ruled out of independent scout group he framed for almost 20 years in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon, a wealthy suburb of Lyon. No new criminal act later in 1991 on the Preynat father was reported.
But for a victims association, “The Word released” is “omerta” allegedly received religious decades, and case management of this priest by the diocesan authorities for 25 years, which is the real scandal of this. Commitment to transparency or clumsiness? After revealing the case in October, Cardinal Barbarin said in an interview with La Croix February 11, having been made aware of “behavior” of the priest “towards 2007-2008.”
A month earlier, the diocese of Lyon stated that Cardinal Barbarin had “received the first testimony about this priest in the summer of 2014″. He said since the “direct evidence” came from a victim, which was not the case in 2007-2008, and involved “prescribed facts.” If the Vatican supported the cardinal, saying it ran the folder “with great responsibility,” faced “a situation that dated back to the years before,” the case remains an embarrassment to the French bishops, who conducted a great job on prevention of pedophilia since the conviction of Pierre Pican Bishop in 2001 for failing to report on rape of minors by a priest.
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