FRANCE
La Croix
April 5, 2018
The cardinal and some of the other defendants stand accused of leaving a priest in contact with children, knowing he had a history of sexual assault
A French cardinal and a high-ranking Vatican official are to stand trial for allegedly covering up a child sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Lyon.
Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and five other Catholic Church officials are to appear in court for allegedly being informed of a priest’s past abuses and not reporting them to authorities.
A Lyon court on April 4 set the date to Jan. 7-9, 2019 for the criminal trial, the most prominent church sex abuse case to date in France, reports the Associated Press.
The case was earlier postponed because Archbishop Ladaria Ferrer’s subpoena and some of the case materials were not translated in due time into Spanish and Italian.
Cardinal Barbarin and some of the other defendants stand accused of leaving the priest in contact with children, knowing he had a history of sexual assault. The priest retired in 2015.
The cardinal has admitted to some “mistakes” in the management and nomination of certain priests but has denied any attempt to cover up the case, the report said.
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