An elderly nun, under questioning by a lawyer, recently said she could remember almost nothing about his client, a child who had been sexually molested by a Roman Catholic priest.
Lawyer Irwin Zalkin was puzzled because church records showed she had heard several complaints about the San Diego priest, and the file noted that she had reported them to higher authority.
Finally, Zalkin asked whether she was familiar with "mental reservation" -- a 700-year-old doctrine by which clerics may avoid telling the truth to protect the Catholic Church.
Catholic church doctrine: An article in Monday's California section about the doctrine of "mental reservation" described how San Diego Bishop Robert H. Brom used a hypothetical situation to explain the centuries-old doctrine within the Catholic Church -- not sanctioned by canon law -- under which it is permissible to avoid telling the truth. The article did not make it clear that the account was based only on the recollections of Irwin Zalkin, a lawyer representing victims of clerical sexual abuse who questioned Brom at a deposition, and that according to Zalkin, the remarks were made when Brom was not under oath. Catholic Diocese of San Diego Chancellor Rodrigo Valdivia, given a copy of Zalkin's remarks in advance of Monday's article, declined to comment on behalf of the diocese.
"She explained in her own way that it is 'to protect the church from scandal.' She said she subscribed to the doctrine," Zalkin said. "What are you going to do?"
Mental reservation is not sanctioned in canon law, experts say, and is infrequently invoked. But in litigation arising from clergy sex abuse cases in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, at least half a dozen lawyers representing victims report having encountered it.
The idea goes back to times when there were two separate court systems: ecclesiastical, or church courts, and civil courts run by the state. Today, all disputes are settled in civil courts.
The doctrine has been used in modern times to "claim that it is morally justifiable to lie in order to protect the reputation of the institutional church," said Thomas P. Doyle, a Virginia priest who is an expert in canon law and has been widely consulted by lawyers for people who say they were victims of abuse.
It has been misused "to justify lying," Doyle said last week. The doctrine is "not accepted church teaching" but has been widely discussed by scholars and moral theologians, Doyle said.
Zalkin's experience was unusual but not unique.
A lawyer preparing one of the more than 500 claims of abuse against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles asked a priest giving a sworn statement the same question earlier this month. His lawyer quickly intervened, telling the priest not to answer.
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony in Los Angeles and Bishop Robert H. Brom in San Diego were asked about it while giving sworn statements.
In Boston, where the national scandal broke in 2002 and forced the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law the following year, the doctrine of mental reservation was "a major concern," lawyer Jeffrey A. Newman said.
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