FRANCE
International Business Times
November 29, 2019
By Pierre Pratabuy
A French prosecutor asked an appeals court on Friday to quash Cardinal Philippe Barbarin’s conviction for failing to report sex abuse by a priest, eight months after a verdict that rocked the French Catholic Church.
Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, was given a six-month suspended jail sentence in March for failing to report allegations that a priest in his diocese abused dozens of boy scouts in the Lyon area in the 1980s and 1990s.
Barbarin, 69, has denied the charges, but tended his resignation to Pope Francis, which the pontiff rejected pending the outcome of his appeal.
The cardinal, who has nonetheless stepped back from his duties, is the most senior French cleric to be caught up in a global clerical paedophilia scandal, which has seen clergy members hauled before courts from Argentina to Australia.
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