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Today Wednesday (December 16, 2020) a Paris court sentenced former Vatican ambassador to France, Luigi Ventura, to eight months in prison after being found guilty of sexually assaulting five men.

The court found that the Italian-born bishop attempted to touch the men during meetings between 2018 and 2019, and the case appeared to the public in early 2019 with the Catholic Church facing several similar cases.

The Vatican agreed to lift Ventura’s diplomatic immunity, the first time the Holy See had taken such a step.

Ventura was absent from the verdict and other court sessions that began on November 10, and the French court also fined him 13,000 euros in damages, in addition to his name being included in the list of sex offenders in France.

Police were first notified of the case after a high-ranking Paris municipal employee filed a complaint about being groped during a public event. Four other men made similar accusations on other occasions, including a twenty-year-old trained priest who said the papal ambassador touched him multiple times during and after Mass.

The former envoy rejected the charges against him and constantly said he wanted to cooperate with the court.

Ventura, who was appointed to Paris since 2009 at the end of December, resigned after reaching 75 years of age, the retirement age for the position he held.

The Catholic Church has witnessed the disclosure of decades of cases of sexual abuse by clergymen around the world, especially minors. Pope Francis declared a zero tolerance policy towards sexual offenders.

AJM / AH (AFP, DPA)



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