In a landmark case pitting the confidentiality of the confessional against the rights of children, a French bishop is to stand trial in June for failing to denounce a priest who sexually abused children.
Mgr Pierre Pican, the Bishop of Bayeux and Lisieux in Normandy, has been charged with "failing to denounce sexual attacks and ill-treatment of minors under the age of 15". If convicted, he could receive a three-year prison sentence.
The 66-year-old bishop is alleged to have heard the confession of Abbot Rene Bissey, a parish priest in Mgr Pican's diocese who was sentenced to 18 years in prison last October.
Father Bissey was found guilty of repeatedly raping one boy and molesting 10 others between 1987 and 1996. The bishop is believed to have known of Father Bissey's crimes for two years before the priest's arrest.
In 1996, Mgr Pican suspended Father Bissey from his duties in the Chemin Vert parish of Caen and sent him to a rest home for six months. He was then reassigned to the Mondeville parish, in the same diocese. He was not accused of misconduct in the second parish.
Mr Jean Chevais, the lawyer for the victims' families, said he was delighted. The charges against Mgr Pican constituted "another taboo that has fallen and a victory of truth over lies". The father of one of the victims said in an interview with French public television on Thursday: "It's not about sending Mgr Pican to jail but to obtain a radical change in the behaviour of the church."
Mgr Pican angered the victims' families by refusing to testify in Father Bissey's trial because he had a right to "professional secrecy". The bishop's lawyer, Mr Thierry Massis, cites 1891 jurisprudence alluding to "the option of conscience" in his defence.
But the charge sheet against Mgr Pican notes there is a "confrontation between two demands, that of the possibility of professional secrecy and that of protecting children and adolescents". In an unusual step, the document cites a church statement which stresses "the need to listen to victims was given priority during the plenary session of bishops in Lourdes last November".
The charge sheet recognises that a bishop has a special relationship with his priests. But, it continues, Mgr Pican "was in possession of all the elements to take an enlightened decision marked by compassion and concern for helping the victims and realism towards Rene Bissey. He preferred to let time pass, not grasp reality so as not to face it, and acted only to prevent a scandal".
The Lourdes conference mentioned in the charge sheet was held after Father Bissey's trial. It resulted in the church promising to report priests suspected of child abuse in the future. "Priests who are guilty of paedophile actions must answer for them in court," the bishops' statement said. "They must make good the ill they have done and bear the weight of the punishment imposed by the church and by society." Father Tony Anatrella, a psychoanalyst consultant to the French Catholic Church, told the newspaper La Croix that between 25 and 30 French priests have been tried or placed under investigation in the past four years.
