BishopAccountability.org
	Your Service or His? The Economist November 10, 2011 http://www.economist.com/node/21538148 EMPLOYER’S name? “God.” His address? “Heaven.” In more self-confident days, that is how Anglicans used to answer pesky bureaucrats demanding particulars of a clergyman’s employment. But for better or worse, the old idea that “religious workers”—to use more modern language—belong in a legal and metaphysical category all of their own is being chipped away. London’s High Court ruled this week that the Roman Catholic church—in this case, the diocese of Portsmouth—could be held responsible for the actions of a priest, now dead, who is alleged to have abused a young girl at a children’s home. This was because the church had put the priest in a position where he could perpetrate abuse, creating a relationship similar to employment. The decision will make it easier for victims of clerical crimes to demand compensation, and it could eventually oblige the church authorities to compensate abuse victims on the large scale seen in other countries. Under Catholic canon law, a priest is appointed ad nutum (at his masters’ pleasure) and can be fired or moved at will. The court chipped away at this convention without attacking it directly: ecclesiastical law buffs noted that it stopped well short of saying that priests are employees like any other. One of Britain’s biggest trade unions, Unite, does want clergy to have exactly the same employment rights, including freedom from discrimination, as other workers. As things stand, it says, many gay clergy prefer to work as hospital chaplains, where their employer is the impeccably correct National Health Service, rather than in dioceses where they could be under the thumb of old-fashioned bishops. A 2008 survey by the union found that fully one-fifth of the hospital chaplains it interviewed had same-sex partners. Britain’s equality laws still allow religious outfits to discriminate on grounds of sex or sexual orientation when hiring clergy (though not other staff) if that is what doctrine lays down. But several recent cases have upheld the rights of clergy to appeal to secular employment tribunals. A woman priest of the Anglican church—which will soon have women bishops—could plausibly sue if denied promotion by a traditionalist diocese. The Church of England, sensing the changing times, this year introduced a system called “common tenure” guaranteeing clergy some entitlements, such as a day’s rest each week. But it also means the gradual end of the hallowed “parson’s freehold” that can give parish clergy a kind of owner-occupier status. The Reverend Peter Mullen, a stalwart London traditionalist, terms common tenure a “destructive bureaucratic swindle” carried out in the interests of “ecclesiastical apparatchiks”. Machinations aside, jurisprudence about clerical rights is evolving fast and unpredictably. The case of a woman minister in Cornwall who sued the Methodist church for unfair dismissal—an action initially rejected by an employment tribunal, then upheld on appeal—is working its way through the legal system, with a hearing next week. Jerry Hawthorne, a lawyer for the Methodists, says: “the point at issue is whether she was a servant of man or a servant of God.” For judges of a secular bent, that may prove quite a wig-scratcher.
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