Abuser priest attends Vatican symposium on priesthood - witnesses

Pope Francis addresses along with Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Canada by his side at the venue where Pope Francis will inaugurate the work of the International Symposium "For a fundamental theology of the priesthood" at the Vatican, February 17, 2022. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

A Vatican symposium on the priesthood, including discussions on sexual abuse, was embarrassed on Friday by the discovery that a French priest disciplined for alleged sexual abuse was among the attendees, witnesses said.

The priest was Father Tony Anatrella, 81, who was barred from public ministry in France in 2018 after a Church investigation found that he abused adult seminarians he was treating in so-called conversion therapy aimed at suppressing their homosexuality.