Before the report was published in late November, it was common among
some commentators to insist that the root of the crisis was too heavy a
reliance on canon law. Michael McDowell, a former Minister for Justice,
even insisted that the abuse of children was compounded by canon law.
Judge Murphy's report demolishes that mythical thinking in one fell
swoop and serves as a vindication of the Church's law. The report makes
it clear that canon law was not the problem.
In fact, the problem of
child abuse by clerics was made worse by the reckless actions of Church
officials, who simply refused to implement canon law. In the opening pages of the Murphy Commission report, it is made clear that Church law refers to the abuse of a minor as the "worst crime."
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For David Quinn, director of the Iona Institute, the reports' findings about canon law are crucial. "What we see in the report is a rejection of canon law by more liberal elements within the Church," he said. "From the 1960s onwards the Church's penal process is virtually abandoned in Dublin and a purely therapeutic approach to the issue of sexual abuse by priests is adopted."
According to Quinn, "within liberal elements canon law began to be discredited and this has wreaked the most terrible havoc."
His contention is backed up by the report itself. Judge Murphy notes, "Canon law, as an instrument of Church governance, declined hugely during Vatican II and in the decades immediately after it."
- Michael Kelly
Full article @ Catholic World Report