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Unpublished documents, which have come into the possession of The Tablet, reveal that the Department wants priests to have the rights that go with employment, including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 ...

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