Who is a priest?s employer?

Catholic priests are not employees of the Catholic Church. Nor are they labour-only subcontractors or management consultants, nor, strictly speaking, are they self-employed. The difficulty of legally categorising them has become an unresolved issue between the Catholic bishops of England and Wales and the Government's Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which oversees legal issues surrounding employment generally.

Unpublished documents, which have come into the possession of The Tablet, reveal that the Department wants priests to have the rights that go with employment, including the right to take a bishop to an employment tribunal. Then a priest who felt that he had been dealt with unfairly could bring a legal action to gain compensation or even reinstatement. For instance, a priest who found himself turned out of job and home because of serious allegations against him, such as being accused of the abuse of children, could appeal against being treated as guilty on suspicion only. For a handful of priests in England and Wales at any one time, this is no laughing matter. The bishops have already commissioned a report, which as part of its remit will look at potential clashes between the Nolan rules on the handling of child-abuse cases and the requirements of Catholic canon law. The signs are that the issue is not proving an easy one to solve. In any event, canon law has itself sometimes been criticised for giving insufficient weight to the otherwise hallowed principle of "innocent until proved guilty".

The bishops have told the DTI that there is no need for outside regulation of the relationship between priest and bishop. Canon law recognises its true nature, which is vocational rather than contractual. Priests submit themselves to the authority of their bishop not because that is the price of bed and board, but as part of their wider obedience to God. They serve their people not because they are told to do so by their bishop, but because of their ordination as priests and ministers. All this would sound rather anomalous to an English employment lawyer, but it would make perfect sense to a canon lawyer. On the other hand canon law is unfamiliar with National Insurance contributions or pension opt-outs, and there is a potential conflict between the two systems of law over, for instance, the tenancy of church property.

A spirit of litigiousness in the Catholic Church has to be avoided, and there are advantages in the present situation where canon law lies so far in the background of the Church's everyday life as to be almost invisible. It is not easy to say which characteristics of the contemporary Church Christ would approve of, but this is surely one of them. But best practice is not replicated everywhere, and dioceses vary in the way that they handle the needs of the clergy, including the need, on rare occasions, for justice. The bishops are currently working on a handbook that would become normative through England and Wales, and that is designed to satisfy the DTI that the rights of their clergy are already well catered for - and clearly set out, which is equally important. Indeed, given the ideals that the Church embraces, it should aim to go further than the civil law expects, setting an example in pastoral care to those in authority over others in the secular sphere. Sometimes, as here, the best response to a bad idea is a better idea.

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