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Father Preynat, at the origin of a scandal of pedophilia in France, "the Barbarin case", was condemned this Thursday, July 4 by an ecclesiastical tribunal to a "dismissal of the clerical state".
This is the heaviest sentence that the justice of the Catholic Church can pronounce. Accused of pedophilia, Father Bernard Preynat was defrocked by the ecclesiastical court. The actions of this 74-year-old priest, committed in the years 1980-1990, reverberated on the cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who was at the head of the archdiocese of Lyon and who was sentenced last March to six months of prison with deferment for not having denounced it to justice.
► To read also: With the Barbarin trial, the hierarchy of the Church facing justice
" Given 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 (...), the court decided to apply to him the maximum sentence envisaged by the law of the Church in such a case, namely the dismissal of the clerical state ", details the ecclesiastical tribunal in a communiqué relayed this Thursday by the conference of the bishops of France.
#LutteContreLaPedophilie
The interdiocesan officiality of Lyon, or interdiocesan ecclesiastical tribunal, refers to Fr. Bernard #Preynat of the clerical state. 📢 ↓ https: //t.co/b3wAyvAIQq
One month to appeal
It all started at the end of 2015, with complaints lodged by former Scouts of the Saint-Luc parish of Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon against their chaplain, Bernard Preynat. Victims had quickly regrouped in an association, The liberated Word, which will help to "break the omerta" around these sexual assaults.
Father Preynat had already been banned in 2015 from pastoral ministry, and in 2018, to celebrate masses in private by the Archdiocese of Lyon. He now has one month to file an appeal suspending the conviction. If he does not appeal, he can no longer be called "father". And the Church will do so that it does not find itself " in a situation of indigence, " said Father Bruno Gonçalves , president of the ecclesiastical court, on RCF, French-language Christian radio.
For Pierre-Emmanuel Germain Thill, a member of La Parole Libérée, it's a real relief. " When the Church takes this kind of punishment, the heaviest for a religious, it proves that she has recorded the guilt of the person and it is already very strong, " he observes.
Compensation now possible
Now that this guilt is recognized, the thirty victims who had declared themselves to the institution will be able to be financially compensated. " We had to quantify the harm that this could cause in our lives: school failures, problems in our personal development, sentimental, relationship ... " says Pierre-Emmanuel Germain Thill. François Devaux, co-founder of the association La parole libérée, estimates that compensation could be around 20,000 euros per victim, on average.
This compensation is all the more important because, for many victims, the condemnation of Father Preynat by ecclesiastical justice is the only judicial decision to which they will have access. " There are, in particular, these prescribed victims. Some of them are people who have been raped. All cases of Father Preynat's rapes are prescribed. For these people, it is really important that there has been this court decision and that there is subsequent compensation, "continues Pierre-Emmanuel Germain Thill.
Imprisoned by the courts in 2016, Bernard Preynat should be tried in the coming months by a correctional court for the non-prescribed facts.