Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal reports on a lawsuit against two Catholic diocese in Wisconsin:
The state Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit against two Catholic dioceses, ruling that the Madison Diocese did not have a broad duty to warn potential future employers of a teacher's past sexual abuse of children.However, the court split 3-3 on whether to let the suit proceed against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where church officials had begged parents not to report the teacher to police and promised he would be sent for treatment and not allowed to have contact with children. The tie affirms the decision to dismiss the case against the archdiocese.
The suit was brought by 5 victims of a pedophile priest from Kentucky after he had been guilty of doing the same thing in Madison and Milwaukee. I find this part disturbing:
The court did not decide two key issues: Whether the church has immunity from lawsuits under the First Amendment protection guarding the practice of religion and whether the statute of limitations prevents such claims to be litigated decades after the abuse, said Marcie Hamilton, a New York lawyer who argued the case for the plaintiffs.
First, there should be no statute of limitations on such a crime. Second, of course the first amendment does not confer immunity on a church for their actions in such a circumstance. By what possible argument could it do so? Churches and church leaders should be held to precisely the same standards that teachers, doctors and therapists are held to; all should be required to report any instance of abuse to the police. Anything less is insanity.
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Seriously? The church is invoking the first ammendment as a basis for legal immunity from committing child rape/molestation?
Is it just me, or has the country gone totally batshit insane?
I thought sex crimes against a minor had no statute of limitations...
I respectfully disagree with you on one point, however, Ed: Churches and church leaders not only *should*, but MUST be held to a higher standard of conduct than the other professions you mentioned, or the moral basis of their authority is demonstrably absent, and they are shown to be complete frauds.
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | July 20, 2008 9:53 AM
In other news, PZ Myers was impaled on a red hot eight-foot-tall crucifix during High Mass yesterday for his blasphemous and criminal kidnapping of The Living Body of Christ two weeks ago on his anti American blog, Pharyngula.
Officiating over the publicly-aired execution on Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI said that the tortured screams of the atheist zealot Myers would serve to silence critics of the Church world-wide.
" The Laws of the Catholic Church are derived from the Holy Word of God himself", said the Pope, "and they are not to be questioned".
Posted by: Gingerbaker | July 20, 2008 10:08 AM
I believe Kazmarek was a lay teacher, not a priest. While that makes him no less a creep, it probably had bearing on the court's decision.
Posted by: Tim | July 20, 2008 10:10 AM
The court did not decide two key issues: Whether the church has immunity from lawsuits under the First Amendment protection guarding the practice of religion and whether the statute of limitations prevents such claims to be litigated decades after the abuse, said Marcie Hamilton, a New York lawyer who argued the case for the plaintiffs.
If they grant the church immunity, then wouldn't that set the precedent for Mormon "spiritual" marriages? Heck, if you grant churches First Amendment immunity, wouldn't that open the door for churches and church officials to do whatever they wanted? You could even go so far as to argue that bombing a Planned Parenthood was protected by your 1st Amendment religious beliefs.
I'd like to think that the court didn't address that issue because it's so barking mad they didn't want to give it any credence.
Posted by: dogmeatib | July 20, 2008 10:34 AM
Is the Marcie Hamilton above the same Marci Hamilton from Findlaw?
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/
She writes extensively on church/state issues as well as abuse by the clergy; so this might be her, even though her name is spelled differently.
Either way, she's a quality source of legal interpretations of these issues. If you like Ed's take, you'll probably like her columns as well.
Posted by: doctorgoo | July 20, 2008 10:47 AM
"Heck, if you grant churches First Amendment immunity, wouldn't that open the door for churches and church officials to do whatever they wanted?"
More disturbing to me is the implication that, if this is a religious freedom case, then it's evidently a religious belief of the Roman Catholic church that priests and other Church personnel should be immune from prosecution for child molestation. I'd love to hear the theological justification for that!
Posted by: Scott Simmons | July 20, 2008 11:15 AM
doctorgoo-
I presumed when I read the article that it was Marci Hamilton, not Marcie, but I don't know that for sure.
Posted by: Ed Brayton | July 20, 2008 11:31 AM
Marci (it is Marci, not Marcie) is great. Her book God vs. the Gavel is a bit schizo, but worth a read.
Posted by: Chris Bell | July 20, 2008 11:32 AM
If what Ginger say is true* that makes the Pope not just loopy but downright creepy.
He was definately here, causing traffic chaos, and costing us a shit-load (Can you guess the Premier and Treasurer are good Catholic boys) AND in America crucifying critics.
As Dana Scully might say "Spoooooky". -☺ DJ
*Yes, yes. I am aware he was joking. Sheesh lighten up guys.
Posted by: DingoJack | July 20, 2008 12:22 PM
@Scott Simmons: There isn't anything related to pedophilia in the priesthood specifically; but the claim that clergy are not subject to civil law is a longstanding one. The US has been spared the worst of such nonsense, by virtue of being founded late and by rather anticlerical people; but European history is not so lucky, and the church has never really abandoned that particular hope.
Posted by: phisrow | July 20, 2008 2:15 PM
WotthefuckingFUCK????? Talk about the law being an ass!
I'm with you, Blaidd Drwg!
Posted by: themadlolscientist | July 20, 2008 2:50 PM
Why is the standard for insanity batshit? You'd think it might be Tasmanian devil shit or perhaps the shit of a paranoid schizophrenic otter.
Posted by: Ferret Shit | July 20, 2008 2:52 PM
If they grant the church immunity, then wouldn't that set the precedent for Mormon "spiritual" marriages?
I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at. Spiritual marriages aren't illegal. It's child abuse that is illegal. No one is proposing making priest pedophiles or Mormon pedophiles immune from criminal law.
Seriously? The church is invoking the first ammendment as a basis for legal immunity from committing child rape/molestation?
I don't think so. These cases weren't about legal immunity from rape or child molestation. And, if I understand Ed correctly, these cases weren't about legal immunity from lawsuits -- at least that wasn't a matter that was decided. There was a question of "duty to warn" which arises from a completely different legal context from mandated reporting. Mandated reporting is based on federal(CAPTA) and state laws mandating that people in specific professions dealing with the care of children report suspicions of child abuse that has already occurred. Mandated reporting is, potentially, a criminal as well as a civil matter.
The concept of "duty to warn" arises from tort law and it applies specifically to mental health professionals. It is not a criminal matter. Duty to warn does not require reporting to police or the state as is the case with mandated reporting (Actually reporters don't contact the police, we have a state abuse hotline associated with DCFS that we are required to use).
And duty to warn, as it applies to mental health professionals, has absolutely nothing to do with knowledge of prior acts. Duty to warn applies to cases where a patient or client specifically tells us about some pending plan to harm an identifiable person or persons. Our duty is to warn that person (or group of persons) and only that person or group. Only if it is impossible to warn that person do we contact the authorities. The threshold for warning is relatively high, rather than mere suspicion as in cases of mandated reporting of prior acts. If you want to hold church officials to the same standards as mental health professionals, then past acts do not trigger duty to warn.
I'll stop here rather than be a comment hog. This is a subject of great interest and familiarity to me because I'm a mandated reporter. I wrote more about it in a post over at my blog today.
Posted by: dr x | July 20, 2008 3:28 PM
The issue of whether churches can claim first amendment protection for criminal activity has already been answered in the negative. See Employment Division v. Smith where Scalia argues that the fact that peyote use was a sacrament of the Native American Church does not protect its members from legal or administrative action taken due to its use or possession.
I can't imagine how one could argue that sexual child abuse wouldn't fall under that ruling, but as Dr. X does a good job of explaining, that's not the issues here.
Posted by: Julian | July 20, 2008 4:53 PM
I should also clarify that the mental health practitioner's duty to warn has nothing to do with warning prospective employers that a potential hire poses an elevated risk to customers or clients. Confidentiality rules prohibit that kind of disclosure. Duty to warn is about warning identifiable target(s) of an imminent danger based upon an active threat, not prior acts.
Posted by: Dr X | July 20, 2008 6:02 PM
"...ruling that the Madison Diocese did not have a broad duty to warn potential future employers of a teacher's past sexual abuse of children..."
Ah, that pesky gray area between the law and ethics. Morally and ethically speaking, I expect more out of a church.
"...church officials had begged parents not to report the teacher to police and promised he would be sent for treatment and not allowed to have contact with children..."
So we know it's wrong but we don't care enough about your children to do the right thing. Oh, and don't forget to leave your donation on the way out!
Posted by: daphne | July 20, 2008 6:34 PM
Here's a disturbing story: the Texas Supreme Court ruled recently that a woman who claimed she was injured when her church performed an "exorcism" on her can't hold the church accountable for her injuries! The reasoning was that the church was practicing religion and shouldn't be liable.
Just amazing.
Posted by: Texas Reader | July 20, 2008 7:22 PM
Yes, Texas Reader, that ruling was disturbing. It was also blatantly unconstitutional. As a U.S. and a Texas citizen, I truly hope that the woman in question avails herself of her right to appeal this to the Supreme Court.
Posted by: Julian | July 21, 2008 10:55 AM