LYON (FRANCE)
Associated Press
January 13, 2020
By Nicolas Vaux-Montagny
A former French priest accused of sexually abusing around 75 Boy Scouts went on trial Monday, but the proceedings were delayed for a day because of a strike by lawyers.
The case is France’s worst clergy abuse drama to reach court so far, and its repercussions reached all the way to the Vatican.
Bernard Preynat admitted in the 1990s to abusing boys, but was only removed from the priesthood last year. The church defrocked him in July, after French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was convicted of covering up for Preynat’s actions.
Several other church officials were also accused of failing to alert police or prosecutors of his actions, including a senior Vatican official, Cardinal Luis Ladaria. The Vatican shielded Ladaria from trial, invoking his immunity as an official of a sovereign state.
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