Patheos blog
March 20, 2019
By Hemant Metha
It should’ve been easy for the Catholic Church to rid itself of French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin. Earlier this month, he announced he would resign from the Church after a secular court found him guilty of not reporting a pedophile priest who had sexually abused minors.
But Pope Francis said yesterday that he would not accept the resignation.
Cardinal Barbarin, 68, promptly offered to resign, though he is appealing the verdict. He met with Pope Francis on Monday to personally hand in his resignation, but both the cardinal and a Vatican spokesman, Alessandro Gisotti, said on Tuesday that the pope had not accepted it.
Instead, they said, the cardinal, one of the highest-ranking and best-known Roman Catholic officials in France, will step aside for an unspecified length of time.
Cardinal Barbarin said in a statement that the pope had acted “invoking the presumption of innocence.”
It’s hard to act on a presumption of innocence when a secular court has declared you guilty of shielding a predator priest. What the pope is saying is that the courts don’t matter, and the evidence is secondary to forgiveness… which might be inspirational if we weren’t talking about the Catholic Church’s most infamous crime.
The pope just doesn’t think covering up for a molesting priest is that big of a deal. This is his reward for protecting the Church.
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