By Jurugo Emmanuel Ogasto<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Catholic Church in South Sudan condemns sexual abuse against boys by a 31-year-old clergyman in Aweil County, Northern Bahr el Ghazal state.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Rev. Fr. Cletes Gruz Ranch, was accused of sexually assaulting two boys, and the High Court in Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal State slapped a prison sentence on the priest.<\/p>\n On Monday, the missionary catholic priest was awarded 14-year imprisonment sentence with a fine of 3 million South Sudanese pounds as compensation for the victims.<\/p>\n Cardinal Stephen Ameyu Martin Mullah expressed his disappointment in the incident, terming it an immoral act by a priest.<\/p>\n \u2018\u2019It is evil for a priest to moralize a child and even a girl or to moralize a woman, it is evil, we stand with the family of the victim,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n He said let the law take its cost.<\/p>\n \u2018\u2019We say that the law takes its cost because such an abomination in a church is not a good thing, it spoils the faith and it destroys the moral of people and we pray for such situations that we come out of it clean,\u2019\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n Cardinal Ameyu urged priests to desist from such acts and preach the gospel of the lord to the people of God.<\/p>\n The 31-year-old priest, belonging to the Missionaries of Mary Immaculate congregation, was arrested on the 23rd<\/sup> of February this year and arraigned before court.<\/p>\n He was among three other missionary clergy stationed at Nyamlel Catholic Parish Church in Aweil West County, Northern Bahr El Ghazal State.<\/p>\n The convict, an Indian national was sentenced of sodomy against male minors.<\/p>\n At the time of arrest, the youth in Aweil West County had protested against the act of the priest and demanded the entire missionary congregation be expelled.<\/p>\n However, other priests of the same congregation who were with the convict at Nyamlel Catholic Parish Church in Aweil West County were transferred to Wau Diocese, for safety.<\/p>\n Conviction of Rev. Fr. Cletes Gruz Ranch on sex offence is the first of a king, involving a man of God, in South Sudan, since 2011 when the country gained independence.<\/p>\n However, the Catholic Church has several times come under scrutiny over sexual abuses of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life, around the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Jurugo Emmanuel Ogasto Catholic Church in South Sudan condemns sexual abuse against boys by a 31-year-old clergyman in Aweil County, Northern Bahr el Ghazal state. Rev. Fr. Cletes Gruz Ranch, was accused of sexually assaulting two boys, and the High Court in Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal State slapped a prison[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":23757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23756","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\/04\/Cardinal-Stephen-Ameyu-speaking-during-a-press-statement-in-Juba.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23756","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=23756"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23760,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23756\/revisions\/23760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}