RAY MOUTON, AUTHOR OF “IN GOD’S HOUSE” ON “REFORM IN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH”
RAY MOUTON, AUTHOR OF “IN GOD’S HOUSE” ON “REFORM IN ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH”
When Legality trumps Morality In The Catholic Church. That Is Whenever And Wherever Money Is Involved.Two recent, amazingly, actually stunning contradictions and hypocritical stances were assumed by the Catholic Church when money was involved.The most recent incident in January of 2103 involved a court case in Colorado, and other incidents involved legal proceedings in bankruptcy courts and other legal venues involving ownership of Church assets.Before the two incidents referred to above occurred, for three decades the hierarchy of the Church has consistently abandoned morality for legality in situations where its priests sexually violated innocent children.The hierarchy washed their hands of the problem on the first day of the current clergy abuse crisis and scandal, abandoning the moral obligations they owed to the terribly wounded innocent members of their flock.Bishops placed all matters relating to the damage done to children in the hands of lawyers who are guided only by secular law and not the teachings and examples of Christ’s life or the Biblical admonition in Luke 17:2 “If he were thrown into the sea with a millstone tied to his neck, he would be far better off than facing the punishment in store for those who harm these little children’s souls.”Beyond this abdication of their moral responsibility came other evidence of how the Church embraces secular law in instances where they perceive it is to their advantage, while arguing that secular law does not apply to the Church where they perceive the law will operate to their disadvantage.Life begins at conception, according to the Catholic Church, yet in an legal appeal involving a wrongful death claim where a mother and the two twins she was carrying died at a Catholic Hospital in Canyon City, Colorado, lawyers for the Catholic owned hospital put forth the legal argument that a fetus is not human life, thus no claim for wrongful death could be pursued in the case of the unborn twins.The lawyers arguing on behalf of the Catholic hospital relied upon secular law, a Colorado state statue that states an embryo is not a person until live birth.The court followed state law and dismissed the claim, causing the lawyers for the Catholic hospital to sue the widower, father of the unborn twins, for their legal fees, driving him into bankruptcy.Subsequent to the court action in which the wrongful death claims were defeated, the Colorado Catholic Church stated it was morally wrong for their attorneys to have put forth a legal argument contradicting the Church’s position that life begins at conception.Incredibly contradictory court positions have been assumed by diocesan lawyers in regard to the ownership of properties associated with local church parishes.In bankruptcy proceedings, attorneys representing dioceses have argued that under Church law or canon law that the property of a local church parish (church, rectory, school, meeting halls, parking lots, raw land) are under the sole ownership of the local church parish and therefore this property is not to be collated or otherwise counted as assets of the diocese for purpose of making financial distributions to creditors of the diocese, the bulk of whom are victims of clergy sex abuse.In other legal jurisdictions where a diocese has decided to sell off local church parish properties, some that are historic church parishes, in order to raise money for diocesan coffers or replenish sums spent in paying claims of victims of priests it negligently supervised, there have been court challenges by the boards of the local church parishes, Catholics arguing that the position assumed by Church lawyers in bankruptcy proceedings is a correct interpretation of canon law, for the property of a local parish belongs to the parish and not to the diocese.In these cases where the diocese wanted to sell off properties, Church lawyers have made the exact opposite argument made by Church counsel in bankruptcy proceedings, taking the position that the diocese does have full ownership of all property belonging to local church parishes and is free to dispose of same at its discretion.When preaching from the pulpit, the American Catholic Church always assumes a pious pose, and talks only in terms of morality as the Church defines morality.When money is on the table, whether it be in clergy abuse cases, cases involving a wrongful death claim for unborn twins, or bankruptcy proceedings, or cases where the diocese wants to evict parishioners from historic parishes so the diocese can sell the land and buildings to real estate developers, the Church seemingly quickly abandons morality for legality, using secular law as a sword.When Church records relating to criminal priests are sought in civil cases involving clergy abuse, a diocese like that in Los Angeles, will expend millions in attorney fees, and argue to the highest court in the land that secular law does not apply to this religious institution.The question of where morality breaks down in the Roman Catholic Church is answered by looking at the places where money and morality intersect.A classic historical example of how money quickly compromises morality in the The Roman Catholic Church is the case where the Vatican accepted 50 million from Benito Mussolini in 1929 in exchange for a papal blessing of his fascist regime, funds that were moved offshore and managed in secret to amass a half-billion pound (nearly one billion dollar) real estate empire in the cities of London, Paris and Geneva. For a full discussion of this immoral monetary scandal involving the Vatican-Mussolini-and agents of the Church, see the article published by The Guardian in London that can be accessed by the link below.