AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
Joanne McCarthy
9 Feb 2017
11.38am The royal commission has adjourned for the morning tea break.
10.03am The royal commission has resumed for a panel hearing into church discipline and secrecy.
Counsel assisting the royal commission, Gail Furness, SC, is just introducing the four panelists.
The hearing will consider canon law, which is the body or system of laws and regulations created by Popes and councils of the church. The first Code of Canon Law was promulgated, or put in place, in 1917.
That code was repealed and replaced by the 1983 Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II.
Furness said the first issue to be considered is the relationship between canon law and civil law. Civil lawyer Kieran Tapsell is expected to say that bishops and other senior church officials have a special obligation to follow canon law where it conflicts with civil law because of the oaths they make.
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