French authorities have sentenced two French Catholic clerics, one of them a bishop, in two separate cases, for 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 paedophile 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 sentenced a priest, also 67, to two years in jail for failing to speak up in a case in which serious abuse of young boys went on for 12 years. The court sentenced the perpetrator to 10 years behind bars.

The verdict against Bishop Pierre Pican 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 bishop admitted during a two-day trial in June to concealing the paedophile activities of father Rene Bissey for two years before the priest was arrested in 1998. The bishop said his silence was necessary to honour 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.

"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.

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 failing 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.

Monsignor Pierre Pican, bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux

Victims' families say the bishop should have told police

The defence argues its case on Friday in the trial of a French bishop charged with concealing information that a Roman Catholic priest was sexually abusing young boys.

Monsignor Pierre Pican admitted on Thursday to the court in the northern town of Caen that he had concealed the priest's paedophile activities but said he would do the same again.

His defence argues that the secrecy of the confessional exempts him of the duty to report sexual crimes against children.

The priest, Father Rene Bissey, was sentenced to 18 years in prison last October for raping one boy and abusing 10 others in the 1980s and 1990s.

Professional secrecy

When asked during Wednesday's questioning whether, if the situation were repeated, he would denounce the priest, he answered: "Having consulted my conscience in this supreme decision, the answer is no".

"I would encourage him to give himself in. I would involve myself more personally in the case. But I am overwhelmed by the number of people who choose to confide in me, and they can do it because they know I have never turned anyone in," he said.

As the bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux in the Calvados region in northern France, he was in charge of the diocese where Bissey was a priest.

He learned of Bissey's offences in 1996 from the vicar general of Normandy, who had been approached by distressed parents.

He sent the priest on a retreat and sent him for psychiatric help and two years later transferred him to a nearby parish, where he was arrested.

The defence argues that the bishop did not know the full extent of the events and so could not judge their seriousness.

"You will see that he did not have full knowledge of the facts. We'll be explaining this... And then there was the situation of the priest who was on the verge of suicide," said his lawyer Bernard Blachard.

The bishop's lawyers also say he is protected by professional secrecy, though the prosecution says this legal notion does not apply to crimes against children.

Confession

The case has sparked a heated debate about how far the secrecy of the confessional in the Roman Catholic church should go.

Monsignor Pican denied knowledge of the priest's actions when called to testify at Bissey's trial last October, refusing to say more on the grounds that to do so would compromise his own case.

But at his trial Bissey said he had given detailed accounts to his confessors in the church.

Monsignor Pican's case could set a legal precedent and comes at a time when the Roman Catholic Church is reeling from a string of scandals concerning paedophile priests.

According to church officials in France, of the 25,000 priests nationwide, there are currently 19 under investigation for rape or sexual assault on minors.

In addition, 30 other priests have been convicted in recent years on the same charges, and 11 of them are serving prison sentences.

Monsignor Pican is the first bishop in modern French history to appear in the dock.

PARIS, France -- A Roman Catholic bishop has been charged with failing to turn in a priest who, in a confessional booth, admitted to sexually abusing children.

Magistrates on Friday said that Bishop Pierre Pican of Bayeux heard Father Rene Bissey's confession and did not report the incident to the police but instead relieved the priest of his duties.

Pican is expected to stand trial in June, a justice official said.

This is the first time that the justice system has acted against a churchman for not disclosing confidential information -- raising legal questions about the traditional secrecy of the Catholic confessional.

Bissey was sentenced to 18 years in jail last October for the repeated rape of one boy and the sexual abuse of 10 others between 1989 and 1996 in a case that shocked France.

The priest stood trial after one of the main victims, now in his 20s, filed a formal complaint with police.

Testifying in Bissey's case, Bishop Pican declined to say if he had known about the assaults and insisted that the confidentiality of the Catholic confession box, where believers confess their sins to a priest, was paramount.

Lawyers for the families of the boys believe Pican knew of Bissey's sex crimes in 1996, two years before the priest was finally arrested.

Bissey was in charge of a parish near the city of Caen until 1996, when he was suddenly relieved of his duties after meeting Pican and sent to a religious retreat.

Six months later he was given a new parish in the Calvados region, where he again had contact with young people -- although none of the abuse charges related to this period.