A French prosecutor asked an appeals court on Friday to quash Cardinal Philippe Barbarin's conviction for failing to report sex abuse by a priest, eight months after a verdict that rocked the French Catholic Church.
Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, was given a six-month suspended jail sentence in March for failing to report allegations that a priest in his diocese abused dozens of boy scouts in the Lyon area in the 1980s and 1990s.
Barbarin, 69, has denied the charges, but tended his resignation to
Pope Francis, which the pontiff rejected pending the outcome of his appeal.