169,500 euros to try to repair, a little, the atrocities committed by Father Bernard Preynat.
The diocese of Lyon sent this global envelope to fourteen victims of the former priest, sentenced last spring for sexual assault on minors and insolvent.
A first in France.
The 14 victims, "whose facts were prescribed and who could not therefore seize the judicial court, obtained compensation from the Church which was paid to them in December," said a spokesman for the diocese on Friday.
The sums allocated come from an exceptional fund which has raised many criticisms, collected in a few months from "targeted donors" via a dedicated association, according to the same source.
This fund was replenished "only up to the amounts requested by the Ecclesiastical Tribunal".
Compensation was announced last spring after the Lyon interdiocesan court recognized the status of "victim" to 21 former scouts attacked by Bernard Preynat between 1971 and 1991. The latter had sent "a request for compensation" to the archdiocese .
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For the seven of them whose assaults were not prescribed, it was necessary to wait for the end of the legal process initiated against the former priest to obtain financial compensation.
Sentenced on March 16, 2020 to five years in prison, Bernard Preynat, 75, had first appealed before giving up in the fall.
A decision hoped for "in the coming weeks" for the other seven victims
"The Ecclesiastical Court was waiting for the penal sentence concerning Bernard Preynat to be made enforceable, that is to say for all the appeals to have fallen, which is now the case, in order to be able to examine the question of victims who were not prescribed. and which are in the two judgments, the civil judgment and the ecclesiastical judgment ”, specifies this Friday the spokesperson of the diocese.
A meeting is planned for this purpose "in the coming weeks" but it is "unlikely that it will be allowed to grant the seven non-prescribed victims additional compensation to that obtained from the civil justice, warns the same source.
The law does not allow two different jurisdictions to rule on the same crime or misdemeanor, and civil justice takes precedence over the justice of the Church.
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But the seven victims do not hear it that way.
“May the Church keep its commitments of recognition and reparation to the end.
For all the victims, demands Pierre-Emmanuel Germain-Thill, civil party in the Preynat trial.
We are waiting for a coherent and dignified gesture to turn the page definitively.
"
The Lyon initiative came after the Catholic episcopate voted in autumn 2019 for the principle of a specific fund for victims of sexual assault.
But its implementation has been slipping since, some of the faithful, called to participate if they wished, having very badly perceived the announcement of this device.