French Priest Defrocked For Abusing Scouts In Landmark Case

Moral evil is wrong done to others, and it can exist even when unaccompanied by external action. Murder is an evil action, but it has its start with the moral evil of hatred in the heart (Matthew 5:21–22). Committing adultery is evil, but so is the moral evil of lust in the heart (Matthew 5:27–28). Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, those evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person” (Mark 7:20–23).

Those who fall into evil behavior usually start slowly. Paul shows the tragic progression into more and more evil in Romans 1. It starts with refusing to glorify God or give thanks to Him (Romans 1:21), and it ends with God giving them over to a “depraved mind” and allowing them to be “filled with every kind of wickedness” (verses 28–29).

Those who practice evil are in Satan’s trap and are slaves to sin: “Opponents [of the Lord’s servant] must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:25–26; see also John 8:34). Only by the grace of God can we be set free.

FILE – In this March 1, 2013 file photo, French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin arrives for a meeting at the Vatican. France’s Catholic Church has stripped the priest Bernard Preynat at the center of a high-level misconduct scandal of his clerical status while finding him guilty of sexually abusing Boy Scouts. French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was convicted earlier this year of failing to report Preynat to police. ALESSANDRA TARANTINO, FILE AP PHOTOPARIS

France’s Catholic Church pronounced a priest guilty of sexually abusing multiple Boy Scouts over several years and defrocked him Thursday, an unusually strong move that reflects France’s growing reckoning with clergy sex abuse.

The ruling by a church tribunal was the latest development in a case with repercussions that reached the highest levels of French Catholic leadership and the Vatican itself. The priest, Bernard Preynat, already confessed to abusing Boy Scouts during the 1970s and 1980s.

Preynat is believed to have abused as many as 85 boys and faces trial in a French court next year. The church tribunal said its internal investigation found he committed “criminal acts of sexual character against minors under 16.”

The tribunal gave the maximum punishment allowed under church rules, stripping the priest of his clerical status. Citing repeated abuse and a large number of victims, it said Preynat abused his church-conferred authority as a Scout leader.

He has a month to appeal the decision.

“This is a great decision,” said Alexandre Hezez, who was abused by Preynat and sought to have the priest defrocked for years. “Experience shows that often (abusive priests) are just displaced to other dioceses. By preserving their capacity to celebrate, they retain their power over people.”

Noting the exceptionally firm language in the church ruling, he expressed hope it would set a precedent.

“It’s important to at last show … that they can face strong sanctions, without concessions,” Hezez told The Associated Press.

His victims allege church authorities covered up for Preynat for years, allowing him to have continued contact with children up until his 2015 retirement.

Among those accused of a cover-up in the Preynat case was France’s senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, and Cardinal Luis Ladaria, who now heads the Vatican office in charge of handling sex abuse cases.

Barbarin was convicted earlier this year of failing to report Preynat to police. Barbarin appealed but went to the Vatican to offer his resignation. Pope Francis refused to accept it.

French magistrates are also investigating accusations against the Vatican’s ambassador to France made by men who say he groped them. The envoy, Archbishop Luigi Ventura, has denied wrongdoing. The Vatican so far has not lifted his diplomatic immunity. Source

StevieRay Hansen
Editor, HNewsWire.com
Conservative Christian World News

“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.” (Joel 2:28.)

John Wesley who said that what we tolerate in our generation, will be embraced by the next. Wesley is 100% correct! We are living in sick times.

Usually, the Lord doth no great thing for or against his people, without giving warning of it before it comes.

They perverted justice among themselves (v. 7): “You turn judgment to wormwood, that is, you make your administrations of justice bitter and nauseous, and highly displeasing both to God and man.’’ That fruit has become a weed, a weed in the garden; as nothing is more venerable, nothing more valuable, than justice duly administered, so nothing is more hurtful, nothing more abominable, than designedly doing wrong under color and pretense of doing right. Corruptio optimi est pessima —The best, when corrupted, becomes the worst.

It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who was a power for God who did not have enemies and was not hated.

2 Corinthians 4:8-11 New King James Version (NKJV)
8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed— 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

“Pedophile” has reverberated throughout America. But beneath our anger and revulsion, a fundamental question pulsates: Are those who abuse their positions of trust to prey upon children—a category certainly not limited to those in religious orders—sick … or are they evil? We need the answer to that fundamental question. Because, without the truth, we cannot act. And until we act, nothing will change.

My job is protecting children. It has taken me from big cities to rural outposts, from ghettos to penthouses, and from courtrooms, into demonic battlefields. But whatever the venue, the truth remains constant: Some humans intentionally hurt children. They commit unspeakable acts—for their pleasure, their profit, or both.