Pope Francis did the right thing in refusing to accept the resignation offered by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin of Lyons after his conviction by a French court of not properly handling a sexual abuse case by one of his priests. Barbarin is appealing and his appeal has a rather good chance of succeeding, as the prosecutor in the case argued against bringing Barbarin to trial in the first place, and all of Barbarin’s co-defendants were acquitted.
The Holy See has learned from last year’s fiasco in Australia, where Archbishop Philip Wilson was convicted of a cover-up in a decades-old case. Archbishop Wilson did not want to resign until his appeal was heard, but was subject to immense pressure to do so. When he did, the relief from the Vatican was palpable. But then the appellate court acquitted Wilson, ruling that his conviction was due in part to an anti-clerical frenzy. So in the Wilson case, a secular court has acquitted an archbishop, standing up to anti-Catholic bias, while the Holy See has, in effect, deposed him based on the same now overturned verdict. That was not going to happen again in regard to Lyons; Pope Francis will wait for the appeal to be heard.
