Clergymen who were found guilty of abusing children entrusted in their care did not escape justice but were brought before the courts and even imprisoned, the Archbishop’s Curia said yesterday.

Reacting to a speech by Social Dialogue Minister Helena Dalli in Parliament on Wednesday, the Curia said paedophile priests were judged by civil courts like any other person accused of committing the same crime.

In Parliament, Dr Dalli asked why it was acceptable that priests who abused children were treated differently from other people.

“Why should a priest be simply defrocked while another person is imprisoned?” she asked. She was speaking during the third reading of a Bill to amend the Marriage Act, which will remove the Ecclesiastical Tribunal’s supremacy over the law courts in annulment cases and would create a clearer separation of Church and State.

But the Curia said Dr Dalli was wrong as priests were judged like other people by the courts. A few years back, it said, priests faced justice and were sentenced to jail.

Furthermore, the Curia said Dr Dalli was wrong in saying: “There was an anomaly in that if a priest and a man abused children, the former was removed from the priesthood or sent to another diocese, while the man was taken to court and sent to prison if convicted.”

It said a priest who is accused of committing such crimes is first judged by the Church Tribunal, which had the power to strip him of the priesthood.

However, this did not mean that he could not be judged by the law courts as well.

This meant that a priest was judged twice, the Curia said.

“The proceedings before the Church do not replace the State’s proceedings,” the Curia stressed, adding that the Church never denied the victim’s right to report any crime to the civil authorities.

The Church was committed to observing the laws of the State, the Church said.