Can a priest who claims he is being punished for turning in
a fellow priest who was having sex with an altar boy, sue his local catholic
diocese for defamation? The state
appellate court in San Francisco says yes.
Here you have two competing interests. There is a state law which requires members
of the clergy to report incidents of child abuse. On the other side you have the rights of church officials to
discipline their priests without court review.
This matter stems out of a 1997 case in which the reverend
John Conley told the police that he had seen the reverend James Aylward having
sexual contact with a seventeen year old boy.
Conley states that the Roman Catholic diocese in San Francisco
retaliated for his having gone to the authorities by placing him on
Administrative leave and attempting to publicly discredit him.
Thereafter, reverend Aylward admitted to inappropriate
sexual contact with numerous minors and the archdiocese paid a $750,000
settlement to the previously mentioned altar boy. The Church, however, stated that it had the ability to discipline
reverend Conley whether he was right or wrong regarding that which he told the
police.
Well, they picked on the wrong priest. Mr. Conley is a former federal prosecutor
and in his lawsuit he claimed that his reputation was attacked as the
archediocese knowingly and falsely told other priests that Conley himself had
committed “inappropriate conduct during Church functions.” The diocese required Conley to undergo
extensive psychological testing. The
diocese also wrote a letter which was published by the San Francisco Examiner
accusing Conley of inappropriately targeting Reverend Aylward.
The archdiocese won round one when the trial court judge
dismissed the Conley complaint concluding that this was an ecclesiastical
matter and that his court did not have jurisdiction.
Round two goes to Conley as the appellate court unanimously
concluded that Conley was required by law to report suspected child abuse and
therefore the church was not entitled to judicial immunity in cases such as
this. The court drew a distinction
between administrative and personnel decisions in which religious institutions
do have immunity from court review as opposed to this situation in which the
enforcement of the Child Abuse Neglect Reporting Act was more important than
the unfettered freedom of the church. A
priest is what is referred to as a “mandatory reporter.” If he see’s something like this, the law
requires him to speak to the authorities.
The appellate court concluded that it is necessary to protect mandatory
reporters from being punished for doing that which the law requires of
them.
The church is now looking at a major financial hit as they
put all of their eggs in the “immunity basket” and they have never denied doing
that which Conley claims they did. What
this means is that Mr. Conley can now have his day in court and a jury will
decide whether or not the Roman Catholic Church is liable and if so, for how
much.
This is clearly the correct decision. I find it troubling that the Church would
want to interfere with someone complying with the law, especially in a
situation as important as this where a child is being sexually molested. I can’t think of too many more situations
that would be as important for a priest to feel free to report as is this
one. Many of us have read a number of
unfortunate stories along these lines in the newspapers and as it is apparently
still going on, it needs to be stopped.
The state of California feels it is so important that it passed its
reporting law in 1980. I understand the
value of the Church having it’s ability to handle ecclesiastical matters
relatively unfettered however relatively is the key word here. This is not a garden variety administrative
or personnel decision, which, in the past has been deemed outside of the
jurisdiction of the courts. This goes
to upholding an extremely important law and reverend Conley ought to have been
commended, not thrown to the wolves.