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		</div><p>A French cardinal has been acquitted of covering up the sexual abuse of minors in his flock.</p>
<p>Philippe Barbarin said he will ask the Pope to allow him to resign – repeating a request that was refused earlier by Pope Francis, who wanted to await the outcome of the appeals trial.</p>
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<p>Thursday’s court decision “allows me to turn a page and for the church of Lyon to open a new chapter”, Mr Barbarin said at a brief news conference.</p>
<p>He said he would go to Rome to “renew my request”.</p>
<figure id="attachment_148749" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-148749" style="width: 600px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img src="https://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/7E3329E0-65FA-4A9A-B649-DA5E815169F7.jpeg" alt="" width="600" height="400" class="size-full wp-image-148749" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-148749" class="wp-caption-text">Cardinal Philippe Barbarin ‘s lawyer Jean Felix Luciani addresses the media after the trial</figcaption></figure>
<p>Initially, the appeals court in the south-eastern French city of Lyon gave no explanation while pronouncing its decision to wipe the legal slate clean for Mr Barbarin.</p>
<p>The court later released a 38-page document with the reasoning behind its decision and said it found no “intentional element” showing a cover-up.</p>
<p>Mr Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, had been convicted in March and given a six-month suspended sentence for failing to report a predator priest to police.</p>
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<p>A lawyer, Yves Sauvayre, representing victims in the cover-up case against the cardinal, said they plan to appeal to France’s highest court.</p>
<p>The verdict comes at a time of increasing scrutiny around the world of the Catholic Church’s role in hiding abuse by its clergy.</p>
<p>The prosecutor’s office had sought the acquittal accorded by the court, as it did in Mr Barbarin’s initial trial in March, in which he was convicted and handed a six-month suspended prison sentence.</p>
<blockquote><p>This decision is logical</p></blockquote>
<p>Prosecutors had recommended already in 2016 that the case be dropped because of a lack of proof of a cover-up.</p>
<p>“This decision is logical,” one of Mr Barbarin’s lawyers, Jean Felix Luciani, said outside the courtroom.</p>
<p>He said the cardinal had faced down “public rumour and calumny”.</p>
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<p>Mr Barbarin, 69, said at his appeals trial in November that he filed an appeal because “I cannot see clearly what I am guilty of.”</p>
<p>The court had ruled Mr Barbarin, “in wanting to avoid scandal caused by the facts of multiple sexual abuses committed by a priest … preferred to take the risk of preventing the discovery of many victims of sexual abuse by the justice system, and to prohibit the expression of their pain”.</p>
<p>Bernard Preynat, the now-defrocked priest at the centre of the scandal, described to a court at his trial earlier this month how he systematically abused boys over two decades as a French scout chaplain.</p>
<p>Preynat said his superiors knew about his “abnormal” behaviour as far back as the 1970s.</p>
<p>“Had the church sidelined me earlier, I would have stopped earlier,” Preynat said.</p>
<p>Preynat, now 74, faces up to 10 years in prison in what is France’s biggest clergy sex abuse trial to date.</p>
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<p>He is suspected of abusing around 75 boys but his testimony suggests the overall number could be even higher. That verdict is expected in March.</p>
<p>The case against Mr Barbarin hinged on a 2014 discussion with victim Alexandre Hezez, who told the cardinal about the sexual abuse he had suffered in the 1980s by Preynat during scout camps.</p>
<p>Mr Hezez felt the priest should no longer lead a parish.</p>
<p>Mr Barbarin told the appeal hearing that he followed Vatican instructions after that discussion with Mr Hezez. He suggested he could not have done more.</p>
<p>At the trial of Preynat, victims testified about how much power the priest had held over them and the lifelong damage that his abuse caused.</p>
<p>“I saw this community that admired this man, and I was his protege, his pet,” said abuse victim Francois Devaux.</p>
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<p>Devaux had a sober reaction after Thursday’s court ruling, saying “It is a disappointment.”</p>
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