A French court convicted the Roman Catholic archbishop of Lyon on Thursday for failing to act on accusations against a pedophile priest.
In a surprise decision Thursday, the Lyon court handed Cardinal Philippe Barbarin a six-month suspended prison sentence for not reporting the facts between July 2014 and June 2015.
Barbarin is the highest-profile cleric to be caught up in the child sex abuse scandal inside the Catholic Church in France. He offered his resignation following the verdict.
Rev. Bernard Preynat’s alleged victims said Barbarin and other church officials covered up for him for years, but the statute of limitations had expired on some charges and it was expected that the cardinal would be acquitted.
The prosecutor had also argued against convicting, saying there were no grounds to prove legal wrongdoing.
Preynat has confessed to abusing boy scouts in the 1970s and ’80s and will be tried separately.
Barbarin will appeal
Barbarin’s lawyer says his client will appeal the verdict.
Jean-Felix Luciani said “this is a decision that is not fair at the juridical level.”
Speaking of his “disappointment” at the six-month suspended sentence, he said. “We hope that at the next step, justice will be done,” suggesting he was hoping for an acquittal in the appeal.
A spokesperson for a group of people who say they were victims of Preynat said Barbarin’s conviction is a great victory for child protection and a powerful message to the church.
“We see that no one is above the law. We have been heard by the court. This is the end of a long path,” said François Devaux, president of the association La Parole Libérée (Lift the Burden of Silence).
“This is a victory that sends a strong signal to lots of victims and a signal to the church as well.”
Yves Sauvayre, a lawyer for some of Preynat’s alleged victims, called the verdict “historic.”
“This is a turning point.”
Barbarin was not at the court in Lyon for the verdict Thursday. Five other defendants were acquitted.
Barbarin’s trial put Europe’s senior clergy in the spotlight at a time when Pope Francis is under fire for the church’s response to a sexual abuse crisis that has engulfed the church, deeply damaging its standing around the globe.
The pontiff last month ended a conference on the sexual abuse of children by clergy by calling for an “all-out battle” against a crime that should be “erased from the face of the earth.”
Victims and their advocates expressed deep disappointment, saying Francis had merely repeated old promises and offered few new concrete proposals.