I refer to the report on page 48 of Saturday's The Times entitled Dressing Up As Nun "Is Not Illegal". In the report it is stated or implied that the Court of Criminal Appeal said that "parading as a priest, however, is against the law".

The Court said nothing of the sort. If the court reporter had bothered to read the whole judgment he should have realised that what was in issue before the Court was not whether dressing up as a nun was or was not "illegal", but whether the accused was guilty of publicly vilifying the Roman Catholic Religion, or of vilifying those who profess such religion, or its ministers, or anything which forms the object of, or is consecrated to, or is necessarily destined for Roman Catholic worship (article 163 of the Criminal Code). All that the court decided was that the simple fact of dressing up as a nun, even if at carnival time, does not, on its own, amount to such vilification.

The Court, however, stressed the point that if such dressing up were accompanied with other circumstances of fact, words or gestures, which objectively amount to vilification, then there could be a violation of article 163. Nor did the Court say that "parading as a priest...is against the law". What the Court said was that the reference to "ministers" of religion in the said article did not include nuns; and, moreover, that a nun's habit, like the attire worn by priests and prelates (the abito talare and the abito piano), was not an object of, or consecrated to, or necessarily destined for Roman Catholic worship.