AUSTRALIA
Catholica
by James, Australia, Saturday, February 23, 2013
Everyone is familiar with the story of the struggle between Henry II of England and Thomas a’Becket in England that ended with a’Becket’s murder in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Ken Follet’s novel, the Pillars of the Earth is narrated around this central event.
The disagreements between a’Becket and Henry were over a number of things, but the most significant was that Henry thought that clergymen who committed murder, robbed or stole, or sexually assaulted children should be dealt with by the secular courts.
At this time, there was a widespread practice called “privilege of clergy” whereby the ecclesiastical courts had exclusive jurisdiction over clergy. A’Becket wanted to preserve this right, and so the conflict. Henry, in a moment of exasperation, famously said, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest”, and someone took the hint and despatched the Archbishop of Canterbury with a sword blow to the head that spilled his brains on the floor of Canterbury Cathedral.
There is a similar struggle going on between the Church and the State over this very same thing, and it will soon be played out in the Australian Royal Commission on the sex abuse of children. There is also a bishop involved, Geoffrey Robinson, who, this time, is on the side of the secular State. He has become for the Church a “meddlesome priest”, but in this day and age it is highly unlikely that he will meet a similar sticky end.
One of the problems that the Church has had to deal with in its long history was that of priests soliciting sex in the Confessional. Various Council’s and Popes made declarations to deal with it, but the main document was Benedict XIV’s Sacramentum Poenitentiae (1741). Because the seal of confession was involved in any investigation of such a canonical crime, Pius IX in 1866 imposed absolute secrecy on the proceedings in an instruction issued by the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.
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