{"id":22898,"date":"2018-11-23T05:22:25","date_gmt":"2018-11-23T05:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22898"},"modified":"2018-11-23T05:22:25","modified_gmt":"2018-11-23T05:22:25","slug":"french-priest-and-bishop-convicted-over-sexual-abuse-of-minors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22898","title":{"rendered":"French priest and bishop convicted over sexual abuse of minors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A French priest has been sentenced to two years in prison for sexually abusing\u00a0multiple children, while his former bishop has been given a suspended sentence of eight months\u00a0for failing to report the crimes.<\/p>\n

A court in the city of Orleans in central France<\/a> on Thursday\u00a0handed down the verdict against the priest, Pierre de Castelet, and the retired bishop, Andre Fort.<\/p>\n

A court official said the ruling forbids de Castelet from working as a priest or meeting with minors, puts him on a national list of sex offenders and orders him to receive psychiatric treatment.<\/p>\n

Three victims were awarded 16,000 euros ($18,245) each in damages.<\/p>\n

De Castelet, 69, was convicted for abusing children during a summer camp in 1993, where he touched them inappropriately while pretending to carry out medical examinations.<\/p>\n

Both men are expected to avoid serving time behind bars, since French law allows a convict to apply for a non-custodial punishment in cases involving short jail sentences.<\/p>\n

Still, prosecutions of bishops are extremely rare in France, with the last case dating back to 2001 when a bishop in the town of Bayeux-Lisieux was given a three-month suspended jail term for failing to report abuse.<\/p>\n

After the judgements, one of de Castelet’s victims, Olivier Savignac, said he was satisfied with the outcome.<\/p>\n

“We were heard. I am happy with my country,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n

Vatican under pressure<\/h2>\n

Predominantly Catholic France has seen priests accused of sexual abuse recently but has not faced a national scandal or reckoning like that seen in multiple countries across the world.<\/p>\n

French Catholic clerics have also been caught in abuse scandals, according to French investigative journal, Mediapart.<\/p>\n

In response to alleged abuse scandals, French bishops organised an “independent” panel<\/a>\u00a0to investigate child abuse committed by Catholic priests in early November.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Bishops’ Conference of France said\u00a0in a November 7 statement that the panel would seek “to understand the reasons which led to the way these affairs were handled” and make recommendations.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Vatican<\/a>\u00a0is under pressure following a string of sexual abuse accusations against clergy in the Americas, Australia and\u00a0Europe.<\/p>\n

More than 300 “predator” priests were accused of abusing over\u00a01,000 minors<\/a>\u00a0over seven decades\u00a0in the US state of Pensylvania, according to a\u00a0report released in August.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Most of the abuse survivors were boys, the report said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Catholic Church in Spain admitted that priests and other members of the clergy had sexually abused minors.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, all 31 Catholic bishops in Chile offered their resignation<\/a> over a sex abuse cover-up scandal.<\/p>\n

Pope Francis<\/a> has called for a summit in February on the prevention of sex abuse with national Catholic Church leaders from around the world.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A French priest has been sentenced to two years in prison for sexually abusing\u00a0multiple children, while his former bishop has been given a suspended sentence of eight months\u00a0for failing to report the crimes. A court in the city of Orleans in central France on Thursday\u00a0handed down the verdict against the priest, Pierre de Castelet, and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}