PARIS (FRANCE)
The Tablet
December 16, 2020
By Tom Heneghan
Archbishop Luigi Ventura, a former nuncio to France who fled to the Vatican last year under accusation of sexual aggression, has been given an eight-month suspended sentence in absentia by a Paris magistrates’ court and ordered to pay unusually high fines.
His case was unprecedented because the Vatican lifted his diplomatic immunity to allow a civil court to try him. Ventura denied the five counts against him and vowed to defend himself, but then quietly left France during the summer of 2019 and resigned on turning 75 that December.
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