In 2001, he was given a three-month suspended sentence for failing to notify civil authorities of charges of sexual abuse of a minor made against one of his priests, the first criminal conviction of a French bishop since the Revolution.
[2] Pope John Paul II named Pican Coadjutor Bishop of Bayeux on 17 April 1988.
On 4 September 2001, Pican was sentenced to three months in prison for having failed to report Father Rene Bissey, a parish pastor in his diocese, to authorities after a woman charged in December 1996 that the priest had molested her teenage son.
[8] Pope Benedict XVI accepted his resignation, which he was required to submit when he turned 75 on 27 February 2010, on 12 March 2010.
His retirement ceremony, held on 21 February, took place in the Basilica in Lisieux because the Bayeux cathedral was too small to accommodate the crowds expected.
[9] Asked about the way he handled the case of the sexual abuse he said that "Today I would not report it any more than yesterday" and that he "preferred to be condemned by his country's justice than betray his conscience".