French court overturns guilty verdict on cardinal
A French appeals court overturned an earlier ruling against Roman Catholic cardinal Philippe Barbarin on Thursday--
who was convicted last year of failing to report sexual abuse charges.
The 69-year-old had been the highest-profile cleric to be caught up in a child sex abuse scandal in the French Catholic Church.
He was given a six-month suspended sentence in March
but he denied the allegations and appealed the ruling.
The Lyon court ruled that from 2014 to 2015 Barbarin covered up allegations of sexual abuse of boy scouts in the 1980s and early 1990s by former French Catholic priest Bernard Preynat.
Preynat's trial began earlier this month.
