[en] The influence on the resistive tearing mode of a weak normal component of the magnetic field Bsub(n) in a sheet pinch is examined. The dispersion relation in the high conductivity limit is derived in closed analytical form and it is shown that the normal magnetic field exerts a stabilizing influence. For values of Bsub(n) scaling like etasup(2/5), where eta is the resistivity, the results obtained relate to recent numerical calculations of Nishikawa and Sakai for finite Bsub(n). In the very weak ordering with Bsub(n) scaling like etasup(4/5), the previous analytical result of Janicke is recovered