“Cardinal Barbarin and the diocese of Lyon will cooperate peacefully and confidently with the legal authorities and will provide the investigators with any information they have, to shed light on such events, which because of their complexity and historical distance need to be cautiously approached”. This is written in a release posted by the diocese of Lyon and relayed by the French Bishops Conference, about the preliminary investigation opened by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Lyon for failure to report a crime and for endangering other people’s lives. The investigation has been prompted by the reports from the victims, who were under age at the time, and concerns the abuse committed until 1991 by father Bernard Preynat, a priest of the diocese of Lyon. “Aware of the extreme seriousness of the charges made against the indicted priest, cardinal Barbarin – the release says – wishes to point out that, when the events took place, he was not the archbishop of Lyon and he never covered up for any paedophilic event. In 2007/2008, he learnt about the past of such priest, whose actions before 1991 were dealt with by his three predecessors, in their times. Believing that the priest had broken with his past, he was then renewed in the mission his predecessors had given him”. Through the joint action of the victims of ‘Parole Libérée’, the cardinal acknowledged that “the events are more numerous and more serious than they seemed to be in 2007/2008”, but he repeats that “no event we are aware of occurred after 1991”. The diocese of Lyon adds that it was in 2014 that the cardinal first “hears the personal story of a victim of time-barred events and decides, in consultation with Rome, to suspend the priest in May 2015, even before the victim reported the case to the legal authorities”. The release ends: “Cardinal Barbarin renews his support to the victims and to their families and brings in his prayers all those who have been hurt by such painful events. He expresses the hope that the legal authorities may act with the requisite peace of mind to understand and establish the truth. Cardinal Barbarin behaved ‘most responsibly’, as the Vatican spokesperson said on 19th February”.