Pope Francis has defrocked a retired priest in relation to repeated cases of sexual abuse perpetrated from the 1980s to the early 1990s, the Trier diocese in western Germany announced on Monday. The unnamed priest did not face trial in a state court, as the offences were subject to the statute of limitations, but was found guilty in two sets of proceedings under canon law in an ecclesiastical court. The bishop of Trier, Stephan Ackermann, ordered the priest’s dismissal from the clergy following the first proceedings in 2015. The priest then lodged an appeal, with the result that the sentence w…