AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By IAN KIRKWOOD July 14, 2013
IN simple terms, the special commission of inquiry sitting in Newcastle at the moment is trying to determine whether the Catholic Church helped or hindered police investigations into two paedophile priests, Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher.
On Friday, counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, asked Bishop Michael Malone about Canon law – Catholic law, in other words, based on papal authority from the Holy See in Rome, and separate from the secular laws that operate elsewhere in our democracy.
Bishop Malone told Ms Lonergan that he was no expert in Canon law. Neither am I. But I have read enough to know that Rome laid down some very strict edicts about how its 2100-plus dioceses should deal with the sexual crimes of its priests.
Bishop Malone was asked on Friday about a Canon instruction that files on the “moral” crimes of his priests be destroyed on their death or the 10th anniversary of their (Canon) sentencing, with only a text of the judgment and a summary of the facts to remain.
At a break in the hearing, I asked Bishop Malone whether this was part of an ‘‘instruction’’ titled Crimen Sollicitationis in Latin, or the Crime of Solicitation in English. Bishop Malone told me he wasn’t up on the names and advised me to look it up on a computer, which I have done, aided by a couple of books from the library shelf.
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