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  Cardinal Justifies Praise for French Bishop's Silence over Abusive Priest

Times of India
April 17, 2010

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/Cardinal-justifies-praise-for-French-bishops-silence-over-abusive-priest/articleshow/5826601.cms

A top cardinal justified praising a French bishop for not reporting a self-confessed abusive priest to the police, saying the late pope John Paul II authorised him to send the letter, a Spanish newspaper reported Saturday.

Colombia's Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos called Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux-Lisieux in northern France a model for all bishops for his handling of the case in a letter he sent him in 2001.

The letter was published in the French press on Thursday, adding to the scandal swirling around the Vatican over its handling of child abuse cases.

"I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration," wrote Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, 81, who at the time headed the Vatican department in charge of priests around the world.

"You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest."

Father Pican had just been given a three-month suspended prison sentence for not denouncing Rene Bissey, who was sentenced to 18 years in jail in 2000 for sexually abusing 11 boys.

Speaking at a conference in the southeastern Spanish city of Murcia on Friday, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos said the French bishop did not report Rene Bissey to the police because he was told of the child abuse during confession, the online edition of regional daily La Verdad reported.

Pierre Pican was prevented by the privacy of confession from reporting the priest "by word or any other means, and under any circumstances," he said according to the newspaper.

"After consulting the pope, I wrote a letter to the bishop, congratulating him as a model of a father who does not turn in his children," he added.

"The Holy Father authorised me to send that letter to all bishops in the world and we posted it on the Internet," he added in a reference to Pope Benedict XVI's predecessor, John Paul II who died in 2005.

Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, a staunch conservative from Colombia, headed the Vatican department for priests from 1996 to 2006.

 
 

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