The only way to reform the Catholic Church is to completely destroy it.

When Catholics go to church they feed the child abusers. Catholic scum have zero moral values.

The pope is a stupid fucking asshole. He belongs in prison.

Wall Street Journal - French Cardinal Convicted for Covering Up Child Sex Abuse

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin says he will tender his resignation as archbishop of Lyon to Pope Francis.

By Noemie Bisserbe and Francis X. Rocca
Updated March 7, 2019 1:32 p.m. ET

PARIS—A French cardinal was found guilty on Thursday of failing to report child sex abuse, the first conviction of such a high-ranking Catholic Church official for covering up instances of a criminal practice that has deeply marred the church’s image in recent years.

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who was appointed archbishop in the French city of Lyon in 2002, faced charges of covering up for an abusive priest and endangering minors. The abuse by Father Bernard Preynat, a priest in the Lyon archdiocese from 1971 to 2015, occurred a decade before Cardinal Barbarin became archbishop but came to the cardinal’s attention in the late 2000s.

Cardinal Barbarin failed to report a crime in March 2010 after questioning Father Preynat about rumors of sexual abuse, and again in July 2014 when one of the priest’s victims contacted him, judges in Lyon said in their ruling. His first offense in 2010 falls outside the statute of limitations, judges added, but the second one made him liable for prosecution.

French judges handed the cardinal a six-month suspended jail sentence. His lawyers said they would appeal the court’s decision.

After the verdict, Cardinal Barbarin said he would tender his resignation to Pope Francis. “I’ve decided to go see the Holy Father to hand in my resignation, he will meet me in a few days,” Cardinal Barbarin told reporters. A spokeswoman for the archdiocese said the cardinal was resigning only from his duties in Lyon, and it would be up to Pope Francis to decide whether to remove Cardinal Barbarin from the College of Cardinals, to which he was named in 2003.

The conviction illustrates the growing assertiveness of civil authorities around the world toward church officials accused of covering up clerical sex abuse. While that trend has put significant pressure on church leaders to police themselves more stringently, the Vatican and many bishops are still struggling to respond.

Victims and their advocates, frustrated by what they say are the church’s failures to punish bishops who have covered up for abusive priests, have increasingly looked to police, prosecutors, judges and legislators for action.

The Vatican held a summit last month on the sex-abuse problem that included talk about possible measures for disciplining bishops who engage in abuse or cover up abuse by other priests. Pope Francis called on society to wage an “all-out battle” against all abuse of minors, but disappointed critics with a lack of concrete steps to address clerical sex abuse or discipline church leaders who cover it up.

The Barbarin verdict raises pressure on the Vatican to investigate and try the cardinal under church law. In 2016, Pope Francis signed legislation specifying that a bishop can be removed from office for ignoring or covering up sex abuse by others. The Vatican didn’t respond to requests for comment on Thursday.

Father Preynat, now 74 years old, allegedly raped or sexually assaulted at least several dozen boys aged 6 to 18 during church camps in the 1970s, ’80s and early ’90s, according to legal documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Father Preynat was removed from parish work in August 2015 and admitted wrongdoing to police. He is under investigation and faces preliminary charges of child sexual abuse. There is no evidence that Father Preynat assaulted children since 1991.

Cardinal Barbarin’s conviction represents an unexpected victory for victims of Father Preynat who brought the case against Cardinal Barbarin. Prosecutors hadn’t requested a conviction for the French cardinal but last year, several victims of Father Preynat used a special provision of French law to force the cardinal to stand trial.

Cardinal Barbarin isn’t the first high church official to face trial for covering up abuse. Bishop Robert W. Finn of Kansas City, Mo., was tried and convicted in 2012 for failing to report a priest who had produced child pornography and resigned in 2015. Last year Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide, Australia, was convicted of failing to report allegations of child abuse and he resigned as archbishop. His conviction was overturned in December.

The verdict in Lyon came less than two weeks after an Australian court revealed that Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s former finance chief, was convicted in December of molesting two choir boys in the 1990s. Cardinal Pell, who denies wrongdoing and is appealing the verdict, is the highest-ranking church official to be convicted of sex abuse by a secular court. In January, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington was dismissed from the priesthood after a church trial found him guilty of sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct with adults.

The Lyon case was precipitated in July 2014 when one victim, Alexandre Hezez, a member of a boy-scout group headed by Father Preynat in the 1980s, wrote to Cardinal Barbarin, according to court documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The two men met months later. Mr. Hezez, now 44, said Father Preynat repeatedly assaulted him from the time he was 7 until he was 12 years old and urged Cardinal Barbarin to remove the priest from parish work.

Cardinal Barbarin wrote to Rome for guidance. He received a letter in February 2015 from Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, who was then the No. 2 official in the Vatican office that disciplines clerical sex abusers and now heads that office, instructing him to take “adequate measures” against Father Preynat “while avoiding a public scandal,” according to the documents.

Cardinal Barbarin wrote back saying he would remove Father Preynat from parish work in September of that year, when priests are typically reassigned in the Lyon archdiocese at the start of the school year, to “avoid long explanations with parishioners.”

But in June 2015, before that removal happened, Mr. Hezez filed a complaint against Father Preynat to Lyon prosecutors alleging abuse. In February 2016, prosecutors received a complaint against Cardinal Barbarin for failing to report the priest’s actions.

Months later, as he celebrated Mass at the Lyon Cathedral, Cardinal Barbarin said, “I’m kneeling down before the Lord’s cross, as I would want to kneel down in front of all the victims.”

“Sorry for our silence, sorry for having been more concerned about the situation and the future of guilty priests, than about the children’s wound,” he said.

Write to Noemie Bisserbe at noemie.bisserbe@wsj.com and Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com

Appeared in the March 8, 2019, print edition as 'French Cardinal Convicted.'