Barbarin has said he learned in 2007 that the priest, Bernard Preynat, had been accused of sexually abusing Scouts in the past. After the scandal erupted, he in June relieved four priests of their functions over sexual abuse allegations. When complaints were first made against him in the 1980s, he was merely suspended for a few months. Photo: AFPAFP · 1 Aug 2016, 15:14Published: 01 Aug 2016 15:14 GMT+02:00A French prosecutor dismissed on Monday a probe into allegations that Cardinal Philippe Barbarin covered up the sexual abuse of scouts, in a case which shook the country's Catholic Church. The scandal was the worst to hit the Catholic Church in France since 2001, when a bishop was given a three-month suspended jail sentence for failing to inform authorities about a paedophile priest.

Source: The Local August 01, 2016 13:07 UTC