UNITED STATES
Thomas P. Doyle
[note: This does not connect to a web site.]
By Kieran Tapsell
Adelaide, NSW, Australia
ATF Press, 2014
Reviewed by Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
In the years since the revelation of rampant sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clerics first became public, a number of clerics and canon lawyers have claimed that if the Church had only followed its own canon law system the problem could have been avoided. The most prominent has been Cardinal Raymond Burke, former prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and now Patron of the Sovereign Order of Malta. In 2012 Cardinal Burke addressed a canon law convention in Kenya and said that the church has a “carefully articulated process by which to investigate accusations of sex abuse.” He went on to say that the discipline of canon law was not followed, hence the on-going problem of clergy sex abuse.
Burke’s assertion and those of the others who have made similar claims are far removed from the reality of canon law’s role in the Church’s abysmal failure to deal with the epidemic of sexual misbehavior. On the other side of the of the reality divide there have been bishops who actually tried to deal with priest-perpetrators according to the Church’s rules and found themselves stymied and stone-walled by a confusing and contradictory array of canonical regulations.
Kieran Tapsell, an Australian legal scholar with an extraordinary grasp of canon law, its spirit, sources and labyrinthine mechanisms, has written the most comprehensive, insightful and accurate exposition of the canonical landscape yet to be produced. He takes a careful look at all of the strands of canon law and comes up with a thorough description of some of the key points of contention including a) the nature and extent of the obligation to maintain secrecy, b) the origin and effect of the two versions of the Vatican decree on procedures, Crimen sollicitationis, c) the question of reporting cases of sexual abuse to civil law enforcement, and d) the canonical barriers to effectively moving against priests who violate minors.
This is not a dry, academic treatise but a highly readable and engaging account of one of the most important and relevant aspects of the clergy abuse debacle. The author not only goes through the bewildering canonical swamp but brings his conclusions to life with real examples. This is not only a commentary on canon law but an invaluable historical source for his description of the Church’s response through history is comprehensive, including all the major events and ecclesiastical pronouncements.
Potiphar’s Wife is a foundational source about clergy sexual abuse. It is one of handful of books of the several hundred that have been written, that is essential to a comprehensive and accurate understanding of what is surely a highly complex, multi-faceted historical phenomenon.
The author and his publisher both told me that there had been a number of criticisms of the book by canon lawyers in Australia. I have searched high and low and found nothing in writing. There was a positive review from a moral theology professor at Catholic University of America that was pulled from the internet because, as its author explained to Mr. Tapsell, he had received emails from canonists criticizing it. Yet no one has stepped forward to engage him in debate except Dr. Ian Waters, a canonist from the archdiocese of Melbourne. Waters responded in his private capacity to a speech by Kieran Tapsell in Melbourne. A copy of Dr. Waters’ speech and Kieran Tapsell’s response to it can be found at http://www.awrsipe.com/Miscl/Ian-Waters-Speech-with-Commentary5.pdf
One common comment made by some defenders of the hierarchy is that very few bishops received copies of Crimen sollicitationis in either iteration, 1922 or 1962, and that consequently it was largely irrelevant and unused. I have had the occasion to review several thousand files of clerics accused of sexual molestation of minors over the past 27 years. These cases have been from throughout the U.S. and from Canada, Ireland, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico and Colombia. I have found a number of documents that were clearly part of the penal process mandated by Crimen. It would be close to impossible to determine how often this procedure was used, in all or in part, but is has been used.
Potiphar’s Wife is highly readable, not a dry, impersonal treatise as one would usually expect from a canon law book. It is engaging, at times shocking and infuriating and in sum, an essential and not just a valuable contribution to understanding the byzantine and all too often contradictory response of the Catholic hierarchy and the Vatican to the most destructive force the Church has seen since the middle ages.
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