The insufficiency of unofficial courts

A correspondent of this paper recently asked readers to visit the site www.secularism.org.uk. I visited the site and tried to find out why the correspondent considers it important.

My first reaction was that I had to read the contents with a pinch of salt as, though I am against confessionalism and in favour of secularism, exponents of the latter may also make sweeping statements against all that is religious in nature.

I have also come across people wrongly opposing the democratic right of religious persons to express their opinions, explaining that this could be considered as an intervention of religious in state matters – which would go against Christ’s teaching that Church and state should be separate.

However, I could not totally ignore some reproduced correspondence in the contents of this site and, while I shall discuss what I read without stating what I think about its correctness, I do hope readers who believe it is not correct will deny it with proof for the sake of truth. This is because I have not seen any letters or articles in this paper since that time (although I may have missed them) showing that the information contained in this site is wrong or that the site has an emotionally anti-clerical agenda.

A leading article dated January 28 is titled Letters Prove That The Vatican Tried To Cover Up Child Abuse. A suggestion “read the letters here” encourages readers to read two letters. Here are some excerpts which are hard to believe but I am not in a position to bring counter arguments to combat the information, which may be erroneous or a misunderstanding.

The first letter from the Apostolic Nunciature in Ireland, dated January 31, 1997, is marked “strictly confidential” and starts “Your Excellency”. It is signed “Yours sincerely in Christ Luciano Storeo, Apostolic Nuncio”. For lack of space, I shall mention only a few short parts but, for those who believe these are quoted out of context, I think the full letters must be read in the above-mentioned site.

One part of the first letter states that “...in the sad cases of accusations of sexual abuse by clerics, the procedures established by the Code of Canon Law must be meticulously followed”. I agree with the fact that these cases are called “sad” but I would have called the abuse – not the accusations – “sad”.

To be fair, this letter suggests that “procedures… must be meticulously followed”. However, these procedures are not described and, hopefully, they include the reporting of such abuse to the justice authorities of the state since it is only state justice that has the right and duty to act where there is breach of law. A religious court acting against a member of a religious organisation when state law has been breached is simply not acceptable. If, however, the procedures that must be meticulously followed include reporting of breach of law to the state authorities, this is a performance of one’s duty.

A second part of this letter states that: “In particular, the act of mandatory reporting gives rise to serious reservations of both moral and a canonical nature.” Here again, the “act of mandatory reporting” is not defined and these instructions are acceptable only if this mandatory reporting includes the structures of state justice. If not, we have here a serious case of a court that is independent of state court in matters related to state law.

The second letter is said to be by the Prefect of the Vatican’s Congress for the Clergy and is addressed to Most Reverend Manuel D. Moreno D.D, Bishop of Tucson. Here are two quotes:

“To the second question (‘should we allow or disallow civil lawyers from obtaining Father’s personnel records from our Chancery files’) we reply that under no conditions whatever ought the afore-mentioned files be surrendered to any lawyer or judge whatsoever”. I suppose that resistance to a lawyer’s request may be acceptable and justified but refusing information to “any judge” is usually contrary to state law.

A second part of this letter states that: “The files of a bishop concerning his priests are altogether private; their forced acquisition by civil authority would be an intolerable attack upon the free exercise of religion in the United Sates”. Here again, one notes an apparent resistance to civil authority, which sometimes requires information from a private structure in order to arrive at a decision based on state justice.

I will not quote comments from this online magazine as some may consider them biased. It suffices to consider the original quotes above but better still to read the whole context.

Dr Licari is a researcher in multiculturalism.