TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN - CATHOLIC CHURCH AS A LEGAL ENTITY
1. I refer to the lead story on page one of the Sunday Business Post of 7th April 2002 in which it is stated that "some lawyers representing the [Roman Catholic] Church have informed victims that the Catholic Church cannot be sued as a legal body. It [the Church?] has also told the victims [of paedophile priests] that Archbishop Sean Brady, Cardinal Desmond Connell and the bishops have no legal status as representatives of the Church and therefore cannot be sued in such a capacity".
2. I draw your attention to a contrary position exemplified by what the Roman Catholic Church did in a High Court proceedings [ref no: 1991 No. 6641P] in which the Campaign to Separate Church and State (of which the writer is joint founder and founding chairperson) took against the Minister for Education and the Attorney General [i.e., the State] to secure a declaration that by paying the salaries of [Catholic] chaplains in Community Schools the State was endowing religion, contrary to Article 44.2.2 of the Constitution.
3. The Master of the High Court ordered [12/8/1992] that the four RC Archbishops, Cahal Daly, Desmond Connell, Dermot Clifford and Joseph Cassidy, as they then were, be added as defendants, after these persons through an affidavit of Rev Daniel O’Connor sought to have these persons, for the Irish Episcopal Conference, joined in these proceedings.
4. The grounds for the Archbishops seeking to be joined were that if the plaintiffs won their case they, the Archbishops would be at a material loss [of the chaplains’ income].
5. The Campaign to Separate Church and State resisted the Archbishops being added as defendants with the State, mainly because the Campaign’s exposure to costs would be increased and because, of course, the Constitutional obligation not to endow religion is on the State and not them.
6. The case was heard before Justice Declan Costello, who, as President of the High Court, chose himself to take the case.
7. The Archbishops were represented in the ensuing Court proceedings by Mr Peter Kelly SC, now a Judge of the High Court.
8. During the proceedings when the Plaintiffs wished to aver to the Code of Canon Law [for a definition of the role of a chaplain] Mr Peter Kelly, for the archbishop defendants, claimed that Canon Law was "foreign law" [and inadmissible]; the matter did not progress and the definition was not heard by the Court.
9. During the proceedings Justice Declan Costello, in an obiter dicta, declared that Community Schools were "Catholic schools".
10. Justice Costello did not uphold the Plaintiffs’ claim; neither did the Supreme Court on the Appeal.
11. If the writer can be of any assistance, please refer to me at the address and phone number below. Solicitors for the plaintiffs were O’Rafferty & Co., Merrion Row, Dublin.
John Colgan, (Founder and first Chairman of the Campaign to Separate Church & State)
Tel 01 6244631
The Toll House
Leixlip
Co Kildare
©2002knn