Source: http://www.clsadb.com/document/e990fb09-fa67-452e-aebb-174f53ed9ba3
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 18:46:18+00:00

Document:
Congregation for the Clergy, Letter Concerning Licit Psychological Testing of a Priest with Appended Study on the Topic, 9 June 1998.
Most Rev. N., Bishop of X.
This Congregation has received the additional materials you kindly sent on the matter of the Reverend A. of your diocese.
1. On 7 October 1997 the Congregation of the Clergy received a letter from Reverend A., a priest ordained for your diocese, 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 21 September 1996 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 21 March 1997, when his superiors seemed favorable to his request for a transfer to another diocese.
2. In response to a request for information, the diocese has presented a full dossier on the case and has 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 A. (E.g., no explanation is given for the diocese’s letter of 21 March 1997, which gives a favorable reply to his request to seek another benevolent bishop), the bishop informs us that he began a canonical investigation into allegations against Father A. on 11 April 1997, 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?
particularly the 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 the 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.
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. (For example, why is it that the recurrent visited the diocesan appointed psychologist on 21 February 1997, if the preliminary investigation was initiated only on 11 April 1997?).
The preliminary investigation in accord with c. 1717 was begun on 11 April 1997 and evidence was collected, including testimony from Father W., pastor, and workers in the rectory of Saint M. Parish, and also from the daughter and son-in-law of the victim, as well as various priests.
A lawyer was appointed for Father A. on 11 June, 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 5 August 1997 the 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 9 September 1997 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°.
De facto, the bishop, in the case in question, finds a determination of unfitness according to c. 1044 to be another and more fitting remedy […] which should be employed in the place of the imposition of an expiatory penalty (Decree, p. 4).
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 circumstances. 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 subjects 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. l]).
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 A. 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?
8. As an argument to sustain both the presence of full imputability and a truly incapacitating psychic defect in the recurrent, the bishop makes use of the reasoning presented by one of the assessors: [...] a severe personality disorder is sufficient to render him incapable (there is a parallel in c. 1095 on incapacity for marital consent).
1. “The help of experts […] does not dispense the ecclesiastical judge, in the use of experts, from the obligation of not permitting them to hypothesize from unacceptable anthropological concepts concluding by being involved in misunderstandings concerning the truth of the facts and what is signified” (unofficial translation).
2. “Therefore, even the experts results, influenced by the above-mentioned perspectives, constitute a real occasion of deception by the judge who has not glimpsed the initial anthropological misunderstanding” (unofficial translation).
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.
Holy orders is the result of a divine call, a vocation, and is a permanent gift of God, which impresses a character on the sou1 of the individual and gives him sacred powers including that of confecting the Eucharist. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that the sacrament of holy orders “conferisce un dono dello Spirito Santo che permette di esercitare una potestà sacra, la quale non pu~ venire che da Cristo stesso, mediante la sua Chiesa (no. 1537) e Come ogni grazia, questo sacramento non può essere ricevuto che come un dono immeritato (no. 1578).3 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 lead 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.
3. “[…] confers a gift of the Holy Spirit which permits the exercise of a sacred power, which cannot come but from Christ by means of His Church. […] As each grace, this sacrament cannot be received but as an unmerited gift” (unofficial translation).
support and sustenance. The money which would have been provided to him has been put in a fund to make restitution to the victim. This is a noble and charitable provision, and is in fact an obligation of justice on the part of Father A. But the direct payment by the diocese of this money to the victim has the double disadvantage of 1) leaving Father A. 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 itself will in the future be responsible for making up for all the debts and injustices of all its priests and clerics.
9. While in the particular case I do not see, apart from the problem of the actual date of the original disciplinary actions against the recurrent 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. 1044, §2, 2°, should be taken in the context of charitable assistance to a sick brother, not in the context of penal law and punishment.
W.H. Woestman, The Sacrament of Orders and the Clerical State: A Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, 3rd rev. ed., (Ottawa: Faculty of Canon Law, Saint Paul University, 2006):432-437.

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