He had invited a young woman to an evening between priests before touching her buttocks unequivocally, the alcohol helping.
Almost three years later, Claude Rujari, 50, who officiated at the time at the parish of Goussainville was found guilty of sexual assault by the Pontoise criminal court and sentenced to an eight-month suspended prison sentence. .
It is also now registered in Figest, the file of sex offenders.
The facts date back to April 15, 2018. The priest had invited the young woman, who had also found him quite insistent, to an evening in a small committee organized to celebrate the obtaining of the driving license of another priest.
There is music.
The participants dance.
There is also alcohol that Claude Rujari might have tasted a little too much.
According to the young woman, the priest had, at the end of the evening, touched her buttocks.
After the evening, the young woman who was also in charge of catechism and rubbed shoulders with the priest as part of a music group, confided in several ecclesiastics as well as the bishop of Pontoise, Monsignor Stanislas Lalanne, then officially filing a complaint.
He recognizes the facts
It is in these circumstances that the case was judged Thursday by the Pontoise Criminal Court at the end of the investigation.
A hearing during which the defendant again admitted the facts, as he had already done when he was taken into police custody.
Actions that he put on the account of a "distraction caused by alcohol".
In front of the magistrates, he indicated "to have prayed a lot" and to "definitively stopped drinking".
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“Claude Rujari is a priest from the diocese of Goma, in the DRC.
He is under the authority of his bishop ”, specifies the diocese of Pontoise which specifies that the priest had arrived in Goussainville in 2015 for a period of three years.
A contract that has not been renewed indicates the diocese.
“He was handed over to the authority of his bishop.
We don't know what happened to him.
"
A canonical procedure in progress
The diocese perfectly remembers the victim's approach.
“She confided in several priests, including Bishop Mgr Lalanne, who advised her to file a complaint.
The bishop is very attentive to these situations ”continues the diocese, which evokes the facts without any reluctance, deeming necessary the clarity of the position of the Church on the question.
He adds “his satisfaction to see that the procedure went to the end and allows this young woman to find an answer to what happened.
Fortunately, these facts do not happen frequently within the diocese.
"
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The bishopric also indicates that a canonical procedure is also underway, in order to answer the question of whether the accused can or cannot remain a priest.
“Rome will decide.
"His bishop in the DRC would have assigned him to France for the benefit of" studies ", but" without charge of souls ".