France’s top cardinal guilty of covering up priest’s abuse

FRANCE’S most senior cardinal has been convicted of covering up child sexual abuse by a priest in the latest blow to the Catholic Church.

The Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, was given a sixmonth suspended prison sentence by a Lyon court yesterday for failing to report allegations that a priest in his diocese had abused boy scouts.

Barbarin, 68, once seen as a possible future pope, is the highest-profile Roman Catholic cleric in France to become embroiled in a child-abuse case.

After the verdict, he said he had submitted his resignation and would have an audience with Pope Francis, who rejected his offer to resign in 2016.

He stood trial with five former aides who were found not guilty.

Two weeks ago, Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Roman Catholic churchman, was convicted of abusing two choirboys in 1996.

Barbarin denied any wrongdoing and his lawyer, Jean-félix Luciani, said he would appeal the conviction.

The trial only went ahead because the plaintiffs brought the case to court after public prosecutors declined to pursue the case.

The priest involved, Father Bernard Preynat, has confessed to abusing scouts but his lawyer claimed the statute of limitations had expired.

However, French officials said some of the cases were still active and Preynat faces a trial later this year.

He was questioned by Church officials as early as 1991, but Barbarin did not suspend him or stop him working with children until 2015.

In 2016, Barbarin shocked France when he gave a press conference and thanked the Lord that cases of alleged abuse dated too far back to be prosecuted.