The Secretariat of the Maronite Patriarchate released a statement Saturday whereby it stressed that the decision issued against Monseigneur Mansour Labaki cannot be touched or changed whatsoever, unless done by the authority it issued it.
This comes after the case re-emerged on several media outlets in reports claiming that Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Beshara Boutros Rai is working on acquitting Monseigneur Labaki from what he was convicted of by the Holy See.
The statement added that Patriarch Rai “has never been and will never be lenient in any way concerning cases of sexual abuse, which he considers a crime against their victims,” adding that this matter cannot be subject to any hesitation or compromise.
The Secretariat explained that “after issuing the ruling against Labaki, Rai received important documents related to the case, so he considered that it is his duty as father of the Maronite Church to hand over these documents to Pope Francis, and this is what he did.”