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New investigation into a deceased Lyon priest, suspected of sexual assault

2022-01-21T12:43:51.418Z


The Lyon public prosecutor's office launched a preliminary investigation between 2019 and 2020 into suspicions of sexual assault attributed by two young women to...


The Lyon public prosecutor's office launched a preliminary investigation between 2019 and 2020 into suspicions of sexual assault attributed by two young women to a deceased Lyon priest, former superior of a reputable educational institution, a judicial source said on Friday January 21.

Read alsoPedophilia in the Church: at the request of the victims, the diocese of Lyon decides to remove the paintings of an artist priest

These revelations, published by the weekly Tribune de Lyon, come after post-mortem accusations against Father Louis Ribes, who died in 1994, who allegedly claimed "

very many victims

" in the 1970s and 80s, according to the Archdiocese of Lyon, who reported several testimonies concerning this priest, a painter sometimes nicknamed "

the Picasso of churches

".

An open investigation

In this new case rooted out of the past, several testimonies implicate Georges Babolat, an influential figure in Lyon Catholicism, who died in 2006. Father Babolat was from 1978 to 2001 the superior of the Chartreux institution, a prestigious establishment which trains the elite Lyonnaises for many generations.

However, the facts revealed by the investigations carried out thirteen years after his death, are within the framework of a summer camp located in Haute-Savoie, independent of the Chartreux.

Read alsoTimor: an American priest sentenced for sexual abuse of children in an orphanage

An investigation into sexual assaults on minors was opened following a letter from the mother of an alleged victim, sent to the public prosecutor of Lyon, in April 2019. Her daughter and another young woman were heard by the investigators, confirming that he had been touched by the priest in the 1990s. The file was closed without further action in April 2020, by extinction of the public action, without having established complicity.

The mother at the origin of the legal proceedings, had previously sent a report to Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, in 2016. In response, the former archbishop of Lyon had sent him a letter, asking him "

forgiveness on behalf of the whole Church for this scandal

", and affirming the need "

to operate a great purification of the memory

".

The archdiocese, already shaken in recent years by the resounding Preynat and Barbarin affairs, explained on Friday that "

since the 2019 report, no other witness has come forward

" to the institution.

Read alsoA priest reveals he was the victim of sexual assault in his youth and resigns

"

Even after the Ciase report (note: last October on pedocrime in the Church of France since the 1950s), no additional cases have been reported

," he added.

This report estimates that 330,000 people were victims of sexual violence when they were minors, by clerics, religious or people linked to the Church.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2022-01-21

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