Vatican City, Apr 16, 2010 / 10:16 am
Late Thursday afternoon, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi released a statement about a letter from 2001 in which a cardinal appears to applaud a French bishop for his decision to not report a case of priestly sexual abuse to civil authorities. The spokesman said that cases such as this one highlight the importance of changes that were made giving the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith jurisdiction over cases of sexual abuse of minors.
A letter from September 8, 2001 has been published online by French magazine Golias, in which then-prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, offered congratulations to Bishop Pierre Pican for choosing not to report a priest who had been accused of sexual abuse to civil authorities.
The priest, Abbot Renè Bissey, was sentenced in 1998 to 18 years in prison for his abuses of minors, according to Italy's La Stampa. Bishop Pican later received a three month sentence for withholding information.
In 2001, Cardinal Hoyos wrote him a letter in which he says, "I congratulate you for not having reported a priest to the civil administration."