Church Asks State Top Court To Drop Suit Filed by Priest
Church Asks State Top Court To Drop Suit Filed by Priest
Archdiocese says legal action would infringe on religious freedom
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saying churches must be free to discipline their clergy, the
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco has asked the state
Supreme Court to dismiss a suit by a priest who was placed on
leave after reporting suspected child abuse by a colleague.
It is "constitutionally essential that churches be free to
choose, discipline, assign and terminate clergy without the
specter of state (including judicial) oversight," Paul Gaspari, a
lawyer for the church, said in papers filed with the court last
week.
Those who enter the clergy "forfeit the protection of the civil
laws when it comes to 'employment' matters," he added.
The archdiocese is appealing a Dec. 29 ruling reinstating a
damage suit by the Rev. John Conley, who has been removed from
the pulpit and assigned to lesser duties while on administrative
leave. The church says the discipline was for behavioral
problems, but Conley calls it retaliation.
Conley, a priest since 1983, saw the Rev. James Aylward wrestling
with a teenage boy in a darkened rectory room at St. Catherine of
Siena Church in Burlingame in November 1997. Conley reported the
incident to his superiors.
Aylward denied wrongdoing and was not prosecuted, but eventually
was relieved of his duties after admitting in a civil deposition
that he had a history of touching boys for sexual pleasure in
previous church jobs. The archdiocese has paid $750,000 to settle
a suit by the teenager at St. Catherine.
The archdiocese contends that it encouraged Conley to report the
incident to police. But Conley says he is being punished for
doing his duty under a state law that requires members of the
clergy, among others, to report suspected child abuse to
authorities.
The suit was dismissed by San Francisco Superior Court Judge
Ronald Quidachay, who said allowing the case to proceed would
violate religious freedom even if Conley's allegations were true.
But a three-judge Court of Appeal panel revived the case Dec. 29,
saying the "compelling state interest in protecting children"
justified legal scrutiny of the church's disciplinary action.
In asking the state's high court to review the case, the
archdiocese said the constitutional separation of church and
state forbids allowing a judge or jury to evaluate its reasons
for disciplining a religious employee.
The appellate ruling is "an unprecedented and dangerous incursion
into the ecclesiastical and religious relationship between a
priest and his archbishop, indeed between all churches and their
clergy," Gaspari wrote.
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
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