By Charles K Mark<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
South Sudan’s Northern Bahr El Ghazal State civil court commences hearing of a case against a missionary priest accused of sexual misconduct with minors.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The suspect, belonging to Missionaries of Mary Immaculate congregation of priests, is among three others stationed at Nyamlel Catholic Parish Church in Aweil West County, Northern Bahr El Ghazal State.<\/p>\n The suspect, an Indian national, faces charges of sodomy against male minors.<\/p>\n Northern Bahr El Ghazal State minister of Information, Zechariah Garang told No. 1 Citizen Daily Newspaper that a comprehensive investigation had been conducted into the allegations against the priest.<\/p>\n \u201cThe case is now in court, and one priest who is accused is the one now in court. The parents of the kids presented their case to the court, and I think in the next hearing the accused will defend himself,\u201d Garang said.<\/p>\n The Minister said the victims (the minors) who have been undergoing treatment were discharged and now attending counselling sessions at their parents\u2019 homes.<\/p>\n The youth in Aweil West protested the act of the priest, demanding that the entire missionary congregation be expelled.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, other priests of the same congregation who were with the suspect at Nyamlel Catholic Parish Church in Aweil West County have now been transferred to Wau Diocese, for safety.<\/p>\n However, Garang appreciates ta positive move taken by the authority for safety of the missionaries at the face of unchallenged call by the community spearheaded by the youth.<\/p>\n \u201cNow the priests are in Wau where they came from. Apart from the one in the custody of police, the rest are now in Wau Diocese,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The three men of God were arrested in February after residents accused them of sexual misconduct against minor male children.<\/p>\n This seems to have been the first reported sex scandal involving men of God in South Sudan since independence in 2011.<\/p>\n There have been many cases of sexual abuses of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church around the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Charles K Mark South Sudan’s Northern Bahr El Ghazal State civil court commences hearing of a case against a missionary priest accused of sexual misconduct with minors. The suspect, belonging to Missionaries of Mary Immaculate congregation of priests, is among three others stationed at Nyamlel Catholic Parish Church[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/Courtesy-photo.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22679"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22681,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22679\/revisions\/22681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}