Wednesday September 5, 4:03 AM
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Two French Catholic clerics, one of them a bishop, were sentenced in two separate cases on Tuesday of failing to intervene to prevent the sexual abuse of minors by fellow-members of the clergy.
In one landmark ruling in the western city of Caen, a court convicted a bishop for failing to blow the whistle on a pedophile priest in his parish and sentenced him to a three-month suspended prison term. And in the southern city of Aix-en-Province a court sent a priest, also 67, to two years in jail in a case in which serious abuse of young boys went on for 12 years. The court also sentenced the perpetrator to 10 years behind bars. The verdict against Pierre Pican, bishop of the western town of Bayeux, marked the first time in modern French history that a Roman Catholic priest had been convicted for failing to disclose the sexual abuse and mistreatment of minors by a member of the clergy.
The court also ordered Pican, 67, to pay a symbolic fine of one franc to each of the four plaintiffs in the case. "This verdict marks the start of a process of shedding light on the seal of the confessional," said Jean Chevais, the attorney representing families of the victims. "I hope this conviction will incite the Church to come to terms with this issue so as not to cover such crimes and offences in the future," he said. "The protection of children is paramount and is more important than any attempt to protect the image of the Church."
A Catholic Church spokesman in Paris said he was surprised and saddened by the verdict "especially considering that none of the children had suffered directly because of Monsignor Pican's silence." The bishop's attorney, Thierry Massis, said his client, who showed no emotion upon hearing the verdict, was still considering whether to file an appeal. Prosecutors had asked that Pican be sentenced to a suspended prison term of between four and six months. The bishop admitted during a two-day trial in June to concealing the pedophile activities of father Rene Bissey for two years before the priest was arrested in 1998. The bishop said his silence was necessary to honor the sanctity of the confessional. Bissey was sentenced to 18 years in prison in October last year on 11 counts of sexual abuse of children.
According to the charge sheet, Pican sent Bissey to a clinic for psychiatric treatment after learning of his offences and then allowed him to resume parish work. The father of one of the victims welcomed the verdict against Pican on Tuesday, saying he hoped it would prompt the Church to rethink church laws. "The laws of the Church must be in line with republican (French) law," Daniel Rebillard said.
Pican's trial took place amid mounting criticism of the French Roman Catholic Church, which has been accused of not taking charges of pedophilia seriously. In Aix-en-Provence, a court sentenced Father Hubert Barral, 67, priest of the village of Vernegues, to five years in jail, of which three were suspended, for failure to assist a person in danger and failure to denounce a crime over a similar case. The court heard that Barral had looked the other way for 12 years -- between 1986 and 1998 -- while one of his friends raped two young boys in the care of the parish, as well as an over-18 boy who was vulnerable due to psychological problems. The perpetrator, 49-year-old Marc Ruther, got 10 years. The court heard that Ruther committed the acts in a room adjoining the bedroom of the priest, who had formerly been Ruther's lover. Ruther also alleged that Barral used to observe him committing the assaults through a hole in the wall.
According to Church officials in France, of 25,000 priests nationwide, 19 are under investigation for rape or sexual assault on minors. In addition, 30 priests have been convicted in recent years on the same charges and 11 of them are serving prison sentences. http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010904/1/1e53e.html