Source: http://www.clsadb.com/document/8c3b8221-1fbd-4e97-9200-c657cb0f2f1f
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 15:10:48+00:00

Document:
Congregation for Clergy, Correspondence Concerning a Case of a Priest Seeking Recourse Against Removal from Active Ministry, 1999.
The following entry concerns a priest who was declared irregular for the exercise of orders (c. 1044) in accord with canon 1717. The priest is not presenting recourse against the administrative acts of his Bishop, but is seeking the intervention of the Congregation for the Clergy so that he could be released from the Bishop’s authority and be permitted to exercise ministry elsewhere. What follows is a copy of the Bishop’s letter to the Congregation and the Congregation’s response. Both are English originals.
Thank you very much for your letter of ____________ concerning the contact which Reverend ____________ has made with the Congregation of the Clergy. I am grateful for the opportunity to provide the following information for you and the members of the Congregation.
I initiated a formal canonical investigation of the ministry and activities of Father ____________ in ____________. Throughout that process, Father ____________ was kept informed of my actions and of his rights. He was invited to secure the services of a canonical advocate. When he did not do so himself, a well qualified advocate was appointed on his behalf. Father ____________ made the choice never to participate in that canonical process, despite repeated invitations to do so.
On the basis of the investigation, consultations with assessors, and a formal hearing, I issued a decree dated ____________. In that decree, among other determinations, I declared that Father ____________ was irregular for the exercise of orders.
Recently, Father ____________ has concealed his whereabouts from me, despite a precept under obedience ordering that he keep me informed of his residence. This reflects his efforts to evade acceptance of that decree concerning his status. As you will see from the file, we have made several efforts to provide an authentic copy of the decree to Father ____________. Since he has been deliberately avoiding contact, however, we consider him to be duly notified in accord with the provisions of canon 1510. On ____________, we received reliable information concerning the whereabouts of Father ____________ and are arranging for someone to hand deliver the decree to him.
front of the file so that you may examine it first. All of the other materials are in chronological order for ease of review.
This Congregation has received the additional materials you kindly sent on the matter of the Reverend ____________ of your diocese.
We have thoroughly studied the extensive information and feel that Your Excellency had to deal with a very difficult situation and did so in an appropriate fashion.
We are enclosing, for Your Excellency’s perusal, a copy of the study conducted by this Congregation of the process followed in this matter. You may find it helpful for any such future situations. We all know that these processes can be fraught with many pitfalls, from the canonical perspective. We offer this information to you only in an attempt to be helpful to you and your canonical advisors.
1. On (date) the Congregation of the Clergy received a letter from Reverend ____________, a priest ordained for the Diocese of ____________, complaining of actions taken against him by the Diocese, actions that led to his status as “an abandoned cleric under the Code of Canon Law.” He complains of being summarily released from his assignment on (date) and of not having the opportunity to defend himself. He speaks of being in “a year of what can only be called Hell; – I have been abandoned as a cleric and left in this misery for a one year period (p. 3);” he further complains that he has no means of sustenance. He says he has not heard from the Diocese since (date), when his superiors seemed favorable to his request for a transfer to another Diocese.
The general tone of his letter, however, is not to present a recourse against the administrative acts of his Ordinary, but simply to get the Congregation to intervene so that he might be released from the authority of the Ordinary of the Diocese and be able to practice ministry somewhere else.
2. In response to a request for information, the Diocese of ____________ has presented a full dossier on the case and had presented the facts in a quite different light.
Although we do not have full and precise details as to the date and actual origin of the difficulties with Father (e.g., no explanation is given for the Diocese’s letter of [date], which gives a favorable reply to his request to seek another benevolent Bishop), Bishop ____________ informs us that he began a canonical investigation into allegations against Father ____________, on (date), in accord with c. 1717. Thus there is a discrepancy between what the recurrent alleges about the date of his removal from his assignment and the date of the beginning of the investigation as claimed by the Diocese. Was the recurrent still exercising his ministry in the parish at the time of the “formal canonical investigation,” or had he already been effectively removed?
the faithful, particularly (name of victim) to donate money to him so that he could continue his higher studies. Furthermore, he fabricated false documents and passed himself off as a civil lawyer; then he drew up a will for (name of victim), making himself the executor and also a beneficiary of the will. He also, publicly, in the parish bulletin, made false statements about his activities as a Reserve Air Force Chaplain and with regard to help given to Cuban and Bosnian refugees.
Since the issuance of the decree the recurrent has attempted to avoid being served a copy of it and has also violated a precept given to him to keep the Bishop informed of his address.
4. In general, and at first glance, one would have to say that the procedure followed by the Ordinary in this case seems to be in accord with the provisions of the Code, providing of course that the recurrent did have effective access to his canonical attorney so that his right of defense could have been exercised before practical steps and definite actions were taken against him.
The preliminary investigation in accord with c. 1717 was begun on (date) and evidence was collected, including testimony from Father\ ____________, pastor, and workers in the rectory of (name of parish) in (city and state of parish), and also from the daughter and son-in-law of (name of victim), as well as various priests.
A lawyer was appointed for Father ____________ on (date), that is, before the completion of the preliminary investigation. However, c. 1720, 1_ and c. 1723, §1, seem to suggest that the lawyer be appointed only after the decree mentioned in c. 1718, §1, has been issued, that is, when the actual decision to proceed to a penal action has been made.
At any rate, on (date), Bishop ____________ issued the decree called for in c. 1718 stating that he would follow the administrative rather than judicial process. One must note however, that the Bishop does not indicate the “just causes which preclude a judicial process” (cf. c. 1342, §1) and which incline him instead to pursue the administrative process.
A hearing was held on (date) at which the recurrent, despite two citations, did not present himself. His Advocate was available by phone and had presented the recurrent’s position in a brief.
5. I use the phrase above “at first glance,” because questions could be raised as to the suitability and liceity of using one and the same process (c. 1720, per decretum extra iudicium) to determine the existence of and punish true crimes and delicts and also to determine the existence of an irregularity or impediment to Orders in accord with cc. 1044, §1, 1° and 1044 §2, 2°.
6. A further problem from the combining of both processes arises, in my opinion, from the difficulty of isolating the two contrasting perspectives upon which each separate judgment is to be made.
From the point of view of ecclesiastical penal law, the investigator and the Ordinary are trying to determine crime and punishment, delict and penalty, imputability and extenuating circumstance. Yet, in the exact same process and at the same time, the Ordinary, with impartial serenity of mind and with the principal purpose of providing for a seriously ill brother priest, is supposed to use the exact same information as evidence, no longer as of sin or crime, but now as of an incapacitating medical and psychological condition.
Thus, one could hold that it is contradictory, illogical and unjust to consider the same situation contemporaneously as one involving both a true illness and a serious crime; for if we were truly dealing with a serious, perpetual condition or psychic cause which so interfered with the subject’s freedom and responsibility that he would be incapable of exercising the priesthood, then his exterior criminal action would not be morally imputable to him.
Furthermore, the medical expert’s reports which are obtained with the cooperation of the person being investigated for the purpose of evaluating his psychic condition so that he might obtain care if needed, should not be admitted as evidence in a penal case. These are confidential medical records which are meant to be used for the good of the patient; other use of them violates the principle of confidentiality and of the doctor-patient privilege. What is provided in an extra-legal forum for the benefit of a patient, cannot be used in a legal forum against that patient’s interests and rights (even if, under compulsion, he should have consented to such use [cf. psychological report, p. 1]).
If this is true, does it not then seem very difficult to sustain that there is also present such a serious psychic irregularity which would have made Father ____________ incapable of ministry? If he had knowledge, freedom and culpability, how is it that his actions are also judged at the same time to be not under his control, that he is not dominus sui?
The parallel with matrimonial consent used in his explanation of the influence of personality disorders is only an analogy and not a strict comparison. Marriage comes about by a contractual consent between two parties, and the contract is seen to be null and void if one of the parties is judged not able to consent or to deliver the object of his consent. The Sacrament of Orders, however, is not exactly similar.
Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that the Sacrament of Holy Orders: “conferisce un dono dello Spirito Santo che permette di eserciatare una potesta sacra, la quale non puo venire che da Cristo stesso, mediante la sua Chiesa” (n. 1537) e “Come ogni grazia, questo sacramento non puo essere ricevuto che come un dono immeritato” (n. 1578). Since it is a gift conferred through the hands of another minister, reception of orders, per se, does not require the actual use of reason. It follows then that the incapacity to fulfill the obligations of Ordination, since it does not make up part of a consensual contract, in contrast to the case in Matrimony, does not of itself nullify or void the Sacrament.
Accordingly, the widespread use of the procedures and the line of reasoning used in this case could lean to a factual situation which, in practice, would be equivalent to the nullification of Holy Orders and the imposition of a perpetual penalty by means of a decree.
Apparently then, the Ordinary, even though he has declared the recurrent psychologically incapable of exercising ministry, seems to consider him as dismissed from the clerical state since Father ____________ is not actually receiving support and sustenance. The money, which would have been provided to him, has been put in a fund to make restitution to (name of victim). This is a noble and charitable provision, and is in fact an obligation of justice on the part of Father ____________. But the direct payment by the Diocese of this money to (name of victim) has the double disadvantage of (1) leaving Father ____________, someone judged as psychically incapable of exercising ministry, without any sustentation whatsoever, and (2) also of creating the precedent (perhaps also under civil law) that the Diocese of ____________ itself will in the future be responsible for making up for all the debts and injustices of all its priests and clerics.
and the initiation of the canonical process, serious violations of procedural law, I would suggest that the Congregation encourage that this model of combining both processes not be widely used in the future because of the reasons illustrated above. A difficult decision concerning a cleric’s incapacity to rightly exercise ministry according to c. 1944, §2, 2_, should be taken in the context of charitable assistance to a sick brother, not in the context of penal law and punishment.

References: §1
 §1
 §1
 §1
 §2
 §2