![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/CatholicChurchInteriorCapeMayNJ-300x197.jpg\")
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A Catholic priest, Bernard Preynat, is to spend five years in jail for sexually abusing dozens of children for about two decades, The Nation newspaper is reporting.<\/p>\n
The 74 year-old Preynat, a French, admitted abusing boy scouts as their leader in Lyon.<\/p>\n
He assaulted about 80 young boys whose ages ranged between seven and 15 years between 1971 and 1991.<\/p>\n
While undergoing trial, the accused said he did not know how serious the crimes he committed were.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cIt took me time to learn it was wrong and condemned given the age of the children,\u201d Preynat said.<\/p>\n
Prosecuting counsel accused the priest of \u201cshattering\u201d the lives of this victims and sought an eight-year jail term for him.<\/p>\n
Preynat was stripped of his clerical status in July after a church tribunal ruled he committed \u201ccriminal acts of sexual character against minors under (the age) of 16.\u201d<\/p>\n
Philippe Barbarin, Preynat\u2019s superior, was also accused of covering the sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
Barbarin, who has been an archbishop of Lyon since 2002, was first given a six-month suspension in March 2019 for not reporting Preynat\u2019s offence, but was upturned by an appeal in January this year.<\/p>\n
Barbarin confirmed he heard the \u201crumours\u201d of Preynat\u2019s activities in 2010, but that he became aware of the abuse after a conversation with a victim in 2014. He subsequently removed Preynat from his position but never reported to the police.<\/p>\n
Barbarin has since resigned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A Catholic priest, Bernard Preynat, is to spend five years in jail for sexually abusing dozens of children for about two decades, The Nation newspaper is reporting. The 74 year-old Preynat, a French, admitted abusing boy scouts as their leader in Lyon. He assaulted about 80 young boys whose ages ranged between seven and 15 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"0","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=723"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":724,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723\/revisions\/724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechristian.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}