Continuing an important development, which is more than Gallicanism revisited, of course.

Rather, it’s another case of civil authorities picking up the clerical-abuse ball dropped by Catholic bishops and cardinals.

Next week’s proceedings will bring up the Vatican’s role in the case by calling into question communications about the issue in 2015 between Cardinal Barbarin [the accused] and Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, the cardinal who heads the Vatican office that disciplines clerical sex abusers.

The trial in a criminal court in Lyon, which starts on Monday, comes as the Catholic Church is under fire over its handling of prelates embroiled in abuse scandals. Victims have blasted the church for failing to punish bishops who have covered up for abusive priests.

Dozens of victims?

The French case relates to Rev. Bernard Preynat, whom prosecutors suspect of sexually abusing several dozen children in the 1970s through the early ’90s at church camps around Lyon, years before Cardinal Barbarin became archbishop.

In 1990, the parents of Francois Devaux, a teenager who attended church camp, wrote to Cardinal Albert Decourtray, then archbishop of Lyon, saying Father Preynat had assaulted their son.

The too familiar transfer:

Archbishop Decourtray suspended Father Preynat for several months and then transferred him to a new parish in a small town 40 miles away from the Lyon suburb. In the Lyon suburb, he had served as a priest for years and headed a boy-scout group. Archbishop Decourtray died in 1994. (emphasis added)

Another accusation, to new cardinal. Letter to Rome. Nothing to police.

In 2014, a man came forward to tell Cardinal Barbarin that Father Preynat had sexually abused him. That prompted Cardinal Barbarin to write to the Vatican to report the problem, Mr. Luciani said, and he removed the priest from parish work. The cardinal didn’t report the allegations to police.

Roman cardinal: Avoid scandal.

In 2015, Cardinal Ladaria, who now heads the Vatican office that disciplines clerical sex abusers and was at that time the office’s No. 2 official, instructed Cardinal Barbarin to take “adequate measures” against Father Preynat “while [predictably] avoiding a public scandal,” the cardinals’ lawyers and a plaintiff involved in the case said.

French cardinal investigated, then isn’t, we don’t know why.

Lyon prosecutors also opened a probe targeting Cardinal Barbarin for allegedly covering up abuse, but dismissed the case in August 2016, the judicial official said. Details of the probe, including the reasons for its dismissal, haven’t been made public.

Then he is again.

However, last year, people who accuse Father Preynat of abuse used a special provision under French law to force the cardinal to stand trial.

Pope Francis objects. Predictably.

In an interview with French newspaper La Croix in May 2016, Pope Francis defended Cardinal Barbarin, saying it would be “nonsensical, imprudent” for the cardinal to resign before civil-court proceedings conclude. . . .

A cardinal in the dock:

PARIS—A trial of a French cardinal accused of failing to act on decades-old accusations of child sexual abuse by a local priest will spotlight how senior Catholic officials, including the Vatican’s top watchdog, have handled such cases.

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, is charged with failing to report a crime and endangering minors, the first time a cardinal has stood trial for covering up abuse by priests.

The charges carry a potential three-year prison sentence and fines of as much as €45,000 ($51,600). The prelate denies the charges.

And well he might. The French have a way with men owing allegiance to Rome. Even the Catholics have gone their own ways over the centuries, as in Gallicanism (French-ism), whereby they proved rebellious in matters of worship, for instance.

As for the government, well since Richelieu things have never been the same.

He means shut up about it.

Pope Francis warned U.S. Catholic bishops against disunity in the church, after months of conflict between the bishops and the Vatican over how to respond to the clerical sex abuse crisis.

Catholics “continue to suffer greatly” from clerical sex abuse and coverups by bishops, “as well as the pain of seeing an episcopate lacking in unity and concentrated more on pointing fingers than on seeking paths of reconciliation,” the pope wrote in a letter distributed to the bishops this week as they gathered for a spiritual retreat outside Chicago.

He also rebuked the bishops for “disparaging, discrediting, playing the victim or the scold” and admonished them to “break the vicious circle of recrimination, undercutting and discrediting, by avoiding gossip and slander.”

Do what you’re told. And pay no attention to people who criticize me.

Takes us back to Cardinal Cody.

Interesting, well done. Capsule study with a few new items. Part of UK’s Catholic Herald’s new U.S. coverage.

Put a cork in it, LeBron.

Discuss, discuss, let’s all discuss.

Another papal flop in trying to reform the Vatican swamp.

A Catholic education success story:

Washington D.C., Dec 27, 2018 / 02:30 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As urban Catholic schools nationwide are closing their doors, it may come as a surprise that the Catholic Cristo Rey Network says it is on-pace to expand to a total of 50 schools within the next decade. The network says that it can provide Catholic education in low-income areas for a fraction of the cost of other high schools.

What’s the secret? Through a unique arrangement called the Corporate Work Study Program, Cristo Rey students are placed in entry-level corporate positions for five days a month. Instead of being paid for their work, students earn their tuition.

The Corporate Work Study Program began in the mid-1990s, when Chicago Jesuits were seeking to better serve the city’s Latino community. After surveying residents, they discovered that they most desired a college-prep high school in their neighborhood. When issues of funding came up, the Jesuits assigned to create this new school reached out to a “very creative, original thinker” for ideas.

“They asked [the consultant] for some ideas about how to sustain a private school for students and families who could not afford to pay for it. He came back with the suggestion that every student have a job,” Fr. John P. Foley, S.J., founder of the Cristo Rey Network, told CNA.

“That was the origin of the Cristo Rey concept.” . . . .

Chicago Jesuits did this. Let’s hear it for the home team.