Church Sex Abuse Cover-Up
June 15, 2001 8:10 am EST

French Bishop On Trial For Failing To Inform On A Pedophile Priest

CAEN, FRANCE, JUNE 14, 2001 (CBS News) - A French Roman Catholic bishop on trial for covering up for a pedophile priest admitted to a court Thursday he had focused more on helping the deviant cleric than aiding the victims and their families.

Pierre Pican, bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux, spoke on the first day of his trial in the northwestern town of Caen for failing to turn in a priest later jailed for 18 years for the rape of one boy and sexual abuse of 10 others between 1989 and 1996.

Pican, 66, said he confronted Father Rene Bissey in January 1997 after learning of one abuse case but failed to follow up on other cases the priest admitted to during their talk.

"The failure to investigate what had happened to other victims was a lack of vigilance on our part," said the bishop, visibly annoyed about having to discuss sexual acts in court.

Instead of informing the police, Pican said, he sent Bissey on a retreat and then had him seek psychiatric help. He transferred Bissey to a nearby parish in September 1998 but the priest was arrested on pedophilia charges a few days later.

Pican is the first French bishop to face prosecution for failing to inform on a pedophile priest, although similar cases have arisen in other countries as victims of sexual abuse by clerics increasingly blame the Church hierarchy.

"Behind Father Pican, it is the Catholic Church that risks being judged at this trial," the Catholic daily La Croix said Thursday in a front-page editorial.

"The procedure that took place shows that at no point was the situation of the victims taken into account. Father Pican cared only about the fate of Father Bissey," wrote the judge who drew up the charge sheet.

Pican's lawyers argue France's professional secrecy laws give him the right to remain silent on information that Bissey gave him during a private conversation.

French law respects the secrecy of information divulged to a priest by a Catholic confessing sins in a church confessional.

But lawyers for families of Bissey's victims say Pican cannot use this justification, since the conversation took place outside the confessional and was thus not protected by law.

In a high-profile case last July, a U.S. jury found the Catholic diocese of Dallas, Texas, had concealed sexual abuse of boys by a priest and awarded the victims $119.6 million in damages - the largest award to date in a sexual abuse case.

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales faced calls to resign after saying he had done nothing irresponsible in allowing a known pedophile to work as a chaplain.

The French Roman Catholic Church made the issue a central theme of a national conference last year and issued a statement saying it would not tolerate cover-ups of criminal acts.