For They Are Not Men Under Authority

The trustees of a Catholic diocese have added another surreal twist to the Church's wrigglings over the antics of its more liberal-minded celibates. The high court has already ruled that the trustees are "vicariously liable" for sexual abuses allegedly perpetrated by a parish priest in Hampshire in the 1970s; the Church responded by proclaiming that it does not employ its priests, who do not draw salaries but are fed by ravens or else live entirely on the word of God. Although a priest owes his bishop "reverence and obedience", he is not subject to his bishop's control and exerts power over his parishioners "as co-operator and collaborator", rather than as a member of a rigid hierarchy. This John Lewis aspect of the Catholic church has until now been strangely under-publicised, presumably because of "the adverse publicity that has surrounded the Catholic church in relation to sexual abuse in recent times". Thanks to the pernicious propaganda of the Jewish-homosexual secular press, the high court has been led to associate the priesthood ipso facto with sexual abuse, despite the Church's consistently demonstrated concern with covering up the scandal, silencing the victims and allowing its wayward minority to continue in their depredations.