True Story

Of

‘Roman’ Controlled Courts In America

True Heartbreaking Story of Roman Law

Ruling Over New York 

 

 

Below is a chapter excerpted from a book written in 1935 (around 90 years ago) by a Roman Jesuit revealing how the Roman Church had already wrested control over our Constitutional Legal System in New York by 1935 … over 90 years ago!

This heartbreaking story reflects how easily American Courts can be (and have been) turned into weapons to silence, intimidate, and destroy those who do not follow the dictates of those who disagree with (or simply don’t like) them.

The strategy of placing Judges in power whose loyalty and obedience do NOT belong to the American Constitution (and its Rule of Just Law for all), but with a “social” justice system that is driven to use democracy to destroy democracy in order to silence and destroy all who would oppose it or disagree with it.

 

American Law was designed to give all citizens the right to have opinions concerning any and all matters whether or not they agree with those in power (the “State”).

Roman (Vatican) Law rejects the right to have opinions if they are not “approved” by the “State” (those in power).

 

Under Roman Law …

• GUILTY Until Proven Innocent (Especially If “Protestant”)
• NO Freedom of Religion
• NO Freedom of Speech
• NO Freedom of the Press
• NO Freedom of Assembly
• NO Right to keep and Bear Arms
• NO Protection against Unrestricted Search & Arrest
• NO Protection against Being Tried Twice for a crime
• NO Protection against Seizure of Personal Property
• NO Rights to a speedy Trial, with Jury, and a Lawyer

 

Note:  This page was converted from a public domain PDF of this book (which was written by a Roman Jesuit priest in 1935 who witnessed this travesty of justice), so please excuse any PDF conversion errors including typos, unintended gaps, and spacing.

 

“Rome Stoops to Conquer (America)”

By Jesuit E. Boyd Barrett

(Published in 1935)

 

CHAPTER  XI

 

THE STRANGE CASE OF FATHER NORMAN

 

THE story of Father Norman will serve as a concrete illustration of the evils which follow when a church exercises influence over politicians, and it will serve as a substantiation of opinions expressed in the preceding chapter. It is a story which should intrigue three classes of citizens: those interested in the phenomena of religion; those interested in “detective stories” in which district attorneys and modern “sleuths” figure; and those who pay taxes and are concerned about the manner in which their taxes are expended. By these three classes of citizens, especially should they be citizens of our Empire State, the name of Raymond J. Norman will not soon be forgotten.

Father Norman, in the late fall of 1930, was the pastor of St. Peter’s Mission situated at 429 East 14th Street, New York City. He was a validly ordained priest thirty years of age. The church to which he adhered was not the “Roman” but the “Old,” or “Orthodox” Catholic Church. This· church, which claims to antedate the “Roman’.’ church, is held by the latter to be schismatical, but the validity of his sacraments is generally admitted. To put the matter in plain language, an “Old Catholic” priest could, equally well as· a “Roman Catholic” priest, absolve from sin a Roman Cath­olic in circumstances of danger when no “Roman Catholic” priest was available. But between the two Catholic Churches great enmity has existed, and the Roman hierarchy for ex­cellent reasons of its own has taken great pains to discredit the “Old Catholic” Church and to put every possible obstacle in the way of its expansion in this country. Being infinitely more powerful than its puny rival, the Roman Catholic Church has almost succeeded in smothering it out of exist­ence. Father Norman, the subject of this story, was the victim of this profound and disedifying ill-will.

Attached to Father Norman’s mission in East 14th Street, was a relief station or cafeteria at which, with the aid of several assistants, he distributed free meals to the poor and unemployed. He received many gifts of food, clothing and money, in alms, from those who admired his work, and usually he was enabled to distribute a thousand free meals a week. However, as times grew worse he had to cast about· him for a further means of getting funds to carry on. He hit upon the idea of a big dinner-dance at the Commodore Hotel. He arranged with the proprietors, on October 20th (1930), to have the dinner-dance on January 28th follow­ing. His contract was in writing and duly signed. He had tickets printed and his assistants proceeded to sell them. The tickets were sold at $15 per couple. Apparently the sales progressed favorably. So far all was in order. He was doing a most Christian and Catholic thing in arranging the dinner­-dance, as there were but few Roman Catholic pastors in the whole country who had not, at some time or-other, organized such events. It was no sin for Father Norman to sell the tickets nor was it a sin for his followers and friends to buy them. Neither was it a crime for him to sell them, nor for purchasers to buy them. Most likely it was a virtuous and good deed on both sides as the proceeds of the dinner-dance were to be devoted entirely to the giving of free meals to the hungry poor of the East Side.

Meanwhile, however, on the opposite side of East 14th Street, facing (or frowning at) the schismatic mission was . the  Roman Catholic Church of the Immaculate Conception. The  pastor of this church was Father Thaddeus Tierney, a man who had a sense of proprietary right over all his parish­ioners, and apparently over all “Catholics” of whatever kind in his parish. Father Tierny noticed with dismay that St. Peter’s across the street was flourishing. He saw with horror some of his own poor parishioners entering the cafeteria for free meals. He believed that their souls were being endan­ gered by Father Norman’s influence. And when, at length he either discovered or suspected that from the pocketbooks of some of his parshioners good Catholic bills of $10 and $5 denominations were being exchanged for Father Normari’s dance tickets his anger knew no bounds. Early in Dec mb r he strode across 14th Street, entered the mission and accosted Father Norman, demanding of him that he close down both. St. Peter’s Mission and the relief station, and that if he did not do so he (Father Tierney) would close them himself. Father Norman refused to be intimidated.

From the moment Father Norman resisted Father Tierney there was no power in New York City that could save him. There was no law sacred enough, and no judge strong enough, to protect him from his religious enemies.

It now became Father Tierney’s duty, according to cus­tomary ecclesiastical procedure, to lay the situation before his spiritual superior, H. E. Cardinal Hayes, and consult him as to what had best be done. Cardinal Hayes was at once a citizen of vast experience and immense political power. St. Patrick’s was known familiarly in Tammany circles as “the power house” and hints emanating from it were virtual com­mands. In many matters the wishes of St. Patrick’s were anticipated by City Offices and Departments and it was un­necessary for St. Patrick’s to convey intimations. Among others, the office of the District Attorney and the Depart­ment of Public Welfare were obsequious in their respect to the will of the Church. Be that as it may, shortly after the Tierney-Norman rencontre, District Attorney Thomas Crain, and Public Welfare Officer James W. Kelly became suddenly and mysteriously interested in Father Norman. They sent for him and subjected him to minute questioning into his affairs, into the operation of the Mission, and particu­larly into the matter of the sale of the dinner-dance tickets. When the inquisition was finished they suffered him to return to St. Peter’s but he was not to be left there in peace for long. Out of a hitherto clear sky there broke upon him such a flood of “official” blackguardism as has seldom been equalled in New York City.

On December 30th two charming if plump “society” ladies interested in charitable enterprises visited the mission and one of them purchased a dinner-dance ticket from Father Norman. While he was putting the $15 into his pocket one of the ladies whistled or signaled with her handkerchief and with a whoop and howl into the mission poured a squad of police followed by a crowd of newspaper reporters and Press photographers who had been tipped off by Welfare Officer Kelly with the object of giving the utmost possible publicity to the capture of the schismatic Father Norman.

The “society” ladies, Winifred O’Neil and Bertha Con­well, policewomen in disguise, together with Detective Charles Kane and Ronayne Sullivan, all devout Catholics, set about seizing all the books and papers and records they could lay hands upon. They “frisked” Father Norman of the fifteen dollars he had  just received. They smashed and battered and despoiled.’ They had no warrants of arrest nor warrants of law of any kind, but what did that matter? They carried off Norman and his staff of eight clerks to 13th Precinct Police Station where they were booked as criminals and imprisoned. There were no hesitations about procedure as there had been when the police were sent to raid Margaret _ Sanger’s Birth Control Clinic in 1921. Norman and five of his staff were held in bail of $1,000 each to appear for examination. The policewomen swore complaints of petty larceny against Father Norman and·his assistants. The case was due to come up on January 7th ( 1931) before Magis­trate August Dreyer, a Jew, in the Magistrate’s Court.

The fact that Magistrate Dreyer was a Jew did not in the least diminish the hopes and expectations of Father Tierney. When Jews fall under the influence of the Catholics of Ta ­ many, they are usually more Roman than the Romans them:­ selves, so far as readiness to serve the Church goes. Father Tierney knew he could rely on the Jew Dreyer as much as on the Irishman Kelly.

The eve of the hearing of the case was the great and triumphant feast of Holy Church, the Epiphany and the mystically-minded will be interested in the fact that the Norman case was, so to say, punctuated by other great feasts of the Church. It was on no less a significant and important feast than that of the Holy Innocents, that Father Norman was finally condemned to a convict’s cell. However, we are anticipating.

On January 6th, Father Tierney no doubt celebrated the Epiphany with brother priests in his comfortable parochial house and discussed with them the nefarious conduct of “that blackguard Norman” who had set up a schismatic mission so near his church. In the eyes of Catholic priests, the gravamen against Norman, was not that he was teaching heresy, but

• that he was competing against them in business and taking Catholic money that should have come to
• ·The feast that saw Father Tierney full of joy was a sorrow­ful one for Father Norman. He saw himself ruined. He knew now that he was “in their clutches” and that nothing could save him. Perhaps he regretted his rashness in attempt­ing to withstand the Roman Church. What a fool he had been! He realized that his dinner-dance was wrecked; no one would buy any more tickets for it and it would collapse. He would have to·return the money received-but that would be difficult. Agents had taken their commissions for selling tickets; some of the money had already been expended on the mission; more of it would be taken by lawyers for de­fending him. Naturally enough, the young Orthodox Cath­olic priest felt in despair.

On January 7th, Magistrate August Dreyer discharged his duty-to the Church. He dismissed the case against the assistants of Father Norman, but he held Father Norman himself for trial in the Court of Special Sessions in the ex­orbitant bail of $10,000! Father Norman was, of course, un­able to procure this enormous amount.

District Attorney Crain now filed information (Jan. 9th) against Father Norman in the Court of Special Sessions. He did all he could to· trump up a plausible charge. Catholic policemen and policewomen co-operated to the best of their. ability and we fear to the detriment of their consciences, but the case against Father Norman was so utterly bogus, ground­less and dishonest that when the Court of Special Sessions met on January 19th, the defendant was duly and unani­mously and on the merits of the charge found and adjudged not guilty and acquitted. The justices decided that Father Norman was not guilty of the crime of petty larceny for sell­ing a ticket for the Commodore dinner-dance.

Father Norman had now but eight days in which to make good his arrangements for the dinner-dance on the 28th, or to have it postponed. He tried in vain to arrange a postpone­ment. The Commodore people refused to give him another date unless he put up in cash, and at once, $1,500.

Policewomen O’Neil and Conwell, with the other officers of law, had carried off his records and he had neither the names nor the addresses of those who had purchased tickets. He recalled some twenty names and he arranged a substitute dinner-dance at the Hotel Breslin for March 18th. About twenty came to it-and as it proceeded there arrived the two Catholic detectives who had been in the raid on St. Peter’s. They were Charles Kane and Ronayne Sullivan. These de­tectives, who were working for the Public Welfare Officer James W. Kelly, did not bother to secure or bring warrants. They were sure it was Norman who was holding this dinner­ dance – that was enough. They arrested him and threw him into the 13th Precinct jail, booking him on a charge of “felony of grand larceny!” Kane and Sullivan had absolutely noth­ing to go on. As alleged in subsequent legal proceedings, Kane forged the charge-in the name of a lady as complaining witness-a lady who at the time the charge was made was in Florida and who, of course, did not appear against Father Norman. The charge, thus fabricated, was, however, good enough for the purpose of holding Father Norman on bail until something else turned up.

Magistrate Dreyer was to hear the case on March 26th. By a stroke of luck on March 24th Kane and Sullivan found a man, Hugh M. Hughes, a good Catholic, who had bought a ticket for the original Commodore dinner-dance and who was prepared to swear that he had been tricked by Father Norman into purchasing it. Hughes consented to swear a complaint against him.

On March 26th the tragic comedy recommenced. When “the felony of grand larceny” charge was called against Father Norman before Magistrate Dreyer no complainant appeared, no evidence was produced, and Dreyer had to dis­charge Father Norman. But before he left the court and while still in Dreyer’s presence, up comes Detective Kane and arrests him again without any warrant of arrest or au­thority of law and without a lawful complaint lodged against him! Kane brought Father Norman to the same old jail (13th Precinct) and later on, the same day, arraigned him before Magistrate Dreyer on another charge of petit larceny. Magistrate Dreyer fixed bail this time at $500 and held Father Norman for . mother trial at the Court of Special Sessions on the same charge as the one’ on which he had al­ ready been acquitted!

At this point we take a couple of paragraphs from Father Norman’s “Complaint” which has since been presented in a suit before the Supreme Court to recover damages against certain defendants about whom more anon. Referring to March 26th ( 1931), it reads that the said defendant Dreyer, well knew that plaintiff had previously been acquitted of the same alleged crime of petty larceny by the said Court of Special Sessions; and well knew that he could not legally be again charged with or held for trial for the same alleged crime; and well knew that the said complaint or affidavit of the defendant Hughes did not charge a crime against plaintiff [Father Norman]; and well knew that plaintiff was not guilty of the said alleged crime of petit larceny; not with­standing which said facts and knowledge, the said defendant Dreyer, Magistrate, in furtherance of said conspiracy of the defendants, unlawfully, maliciously and in willful disregard and abuse and in excess of his lawful authority, forced plaintiff again to be held and put to trial for the same illegal crime in violation of his plain legal and constitutional rights. . . .

That the said defendant Crain … upon receiving said affidavit of the defendant Hughes and other records in the case, and knowing that said affidavit or complaint did not charge a crime, willfully and maliciously and in furtherance of the said conspiracy, altered the true and insufficient allegations of the same, and prepared and .filed in said Court of Special Sessions on July 27, 1931, an information against plaintiff artfully and falsely so framed as to charge plaintiff with the crime of petit larceny by alleging in substance that plaintiff had fraudulently and falsely represented to the said Hughes that “plaintiff prior to 27 October, 1930, made arrangements” with the Hotel Com­modore for the said dinner and dance “whereas in truth and in fact … he had not made any arrangements whatever” with the said Hotel Commodore.

Since a great deal of the subsequent events turned upon this affidavit of Hugh M. Hughes, it may be well for clarity’s sake to explain it.

On October 27th ( 1930) an unknown man had indeed sold Hugh M. Hughes a ticket for Father Norman’s dinner­ dance. The check for the ticket was subsequently endorsed by Father Norman. The dinner-dance, as we know, was never held. District Attorney Crain, although he knew he was falsifying facts, pretended that the sale of the ticket was fraudulent. He pretended that at the time of the sale no arrangements had been made to hold the dinner-dance, and Father Norman never seriously intended to hold one! Actually, at the first trial before the Court of Special Sessions, the banquet officials of .. the Commodore swore that arrangements for the dinner dance had been made, and in Father Norman’s possession there was the written con­tract for it, and it was presented in evidence!

 

The State well knew that Father Norman had already been acquitted on the false charge of selling tickets for the dinner-dance, and that it was unlawful to charge him again on the same count. But what did law or justice matter in the case?

 

The trial before the Court of Special Sessions (December 21, 1931) was a mockery of law; “an amazing abortion of justice” it is called in his brief on appeal, to be mentioned later. As Father Norman complained, it was not prosecution but persecution. To quote again from the complaint be£ore the Supreme Court referred to above:

As the record of the said trial shows, and as the fact is, as the defendant Crain and the other defendants herein well knew, there was no evidence against the plaintiff upon the said trial to justify or sustain his conviction of the said false and illegal charge and the said judgment and sentence were and are in violation of the legal and constitutional rights of plaintiff to one fair trial, and the same were illegal and null and void.

Father Raymond had at this trial no lawyer and no wit­ nesses present on his behalf nor any documentary evidence to produce in court in his defense. He asked for an adjourn­ment which was ref used after five adjournments had been granted to the District Attorney. The Court appointed Mr. Mark Wolf as his lawyer. The State’s chief witness was De­tective Kane, who told of arresting Father Norman at the Hotel Breslin and described an imaginary conversation with him. He put the words “what the hell” into the priest’s mouth.

 

Mr. Justice Rayne!: You mean to tell us that this clergyman used the expression “what the hell”?

Detective Kane (witness) : Yes, Sir. He used worse than that, Your Honor, which I wouldn’t wish to express.

 

The justices cross-questioned Father Raymond as to his ordination and early employment. They had been primed to inquire if he had worked on a railway, and extracted an ad­ mission that he had worked for a few months on a railway. They extracted the further admission that he had sung a few times as an extra in a chorus at the Metropolitan Opera.

They badgered him and then found him guilty of petit larceny and when Attorney Wolf applied on Father Nor­ man’s behalf that he should be allowed out on bail to fulfill his clerical offices for Christmas, the presiding justice, Charles Pope Caldwell, refused, saying: “I do not know whether the Community would be benefited by a man who has been convicted of this kind of crime   Itseems to me the request

is not well founded … remanded for sentence on December 28th.” His Eminence Cardinal Hayes and Father Thaddeus Tierney no doubt ·spent Christmas, 1931, preaching mercy and love and justice and good.:..will and forgiveness, and feasting themselves and their friends and rejoicing in the triumphs of Holy Mother Church.

Father Norman spent Christmas in the Tombs, an inno­cent, helpless victim of Catholic Action!

On December 28th (the Feast of the Holy Innocents), Father Norman was brought up for sentence before Presiding Justice Daniel Direnzo, the admirable Catholic, who had ac­quitted him previously (Jan. 19, 1931) on the same charge for the same offense.

When interrogated by Justice Direnzo, Norman said: “You yourself are very familiar with my case! This is only a repetition of the same case.” Justice Direnzo answered: “This is evidently different. You were acquitted on that occasion. You were found guilty on this one.”

Justice Direnzo sentenced Father Norman forthwith to an indeterminate term of up to thr e years in the City Peni­ tentiary on Welfare Island where his term of imprisonment was later assessed and fixed by the Board of Parole at the exorbitant term of two years of penal servitude.

Father Norman was now-where in the view of Holy Mother Church he belonged-a cop.vict among convicts in the New York State and City prison on Welfare Island. He had been arrested three times, always without a warrant. He had seen the inside of the Tombs and precinct prisons. His mission was closed. His name and reputation were befouled.

.Twice the charges against him had been dismissed as utterly groundless and unsupported by any kind of credible evidence. But the third attempt was lucky. It brought a glorious con­ viction!

All this had cost the city a fair amount of money, but was it not well spent? Was it not an admirable achievement for religion and morality to prevent the hungry poor from receiving free meals from the contaminating hands of an “Orthodox” Catholic priest?

The day following the Feast of the Annunciation of the Birth of Christ in Norman’s first year as a convict­ March 26, 1932-an attorney who in the eyes of religious­ minded folk is a thoroughly wicked man, came into the·case. Maj or Joseph Wheless, a freethinker, an atheist, and the author of such blasphemous works as ls it God’s Word and Forgery of Christianity, had heard of Father Norman’s diffi­ culties and offered his services. On the date mentioned he was substituted as attorney for Father Norman, and took up the defense of the convict.

Maj or Wheless at once set in motion an appeal to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court from the conviction of the Court of Special Sessions. On May 20, 1932, the ap­ peal was heard. Major Wheless discovered that neither fact, nor reason, nor law, could prevail in New York City against the authority of Holy Mother Church. He made a little progress, indeed, and converted two of the· five justices to recognize the innocence of Father Norman. But the three re­ maining judges could not be moved. They sustained the conviction.

One of the dissenting justices granted to Father Norman an appeal to the Court of Appeals, and a certificate of reason­ able doubt. Thereupon, on July 13, 1932, after seven months of convict life, Father Norman was released from imprison­ ment in bail of $500, pending his further appeal.

The appeal was heard in the Court of Appeals in Albany at the October Term of 1932. On October 18th the seven justices of that court unanimously reversed the affirmance of the Appellate Division and the judgment of conviction of the Court of Special Sessions, and discharged Father Nor­man. Major Wheless was not suffered by the justices to finish his argument. The plain facts that he put before them, even before finishing his argument, so astonished and shocked them that they interrupted him, enquired of the District Attorney if the facts as stated were true and on his confessing that they were, the Court announced its written decision, all the justices concurring.¹ –

Had Major Wheless been a religious-minded man, he would no doubt have counseled his client to proceed no fur­ ther and to attribute whatever injuries he had suffered to a pardonable excess of religious zeal on the part of Mother Church. But unfortunately Major Wheless was bereft of piety and reverence and he counseled his client to institute proceedings against the chief agents in his persecution for conspiracy, in malicious prosecution and to demand judgment against them in $500,000 actual and punitive damages.

On October 20, 1932, in the Supreme Court, Bronx County, began the action of Raymond J. Norman, plaintiff, by sum­ mons and complaint· for damage for malicious prosecution

against Patrick Joseph Hayes, individually and as Cardinal Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York; Thaddeus Tierney; James W. Kelly, Ronayne Sulli­ van, August Dreyer, Thomas C. T. Crain, Hugh M. Hughes, and Charles Kane, defendants.

It is not yet three years since the action began and the defendants through various legal expediencies have been able to keep ahead of pursuit. But the pursuit has not slackened and will not slacken.

The complaint, as filed on October 20th, by Major Joseph Wheless, contains accusations of a grave character against the

1The decision is found in New York Reports, vol. 260, p. 75.

defendants, Pars. III and VI, having to do with the motives

that impelled them to their conspiracy.

 

Par. Ill. On information and belief, that all of the defendants above named, with the exception of the defendant Crain, were and are members of the said, so-called Holy Roman Apostolic Catholic Church, and acted in the matters herein complained of as and because of being members of the said Roman Catholic Church and in its interest and behalf, and at the instance and direction of the defendant Hayes; and the defendant_ Crain acted herein by and through an assistant appointed by him, who is a member of the said Catholic Church and acted in the same interest and behalf.1

Par. VI. Upon information and belief, that the several de­ fendants above named concerted and conspired  together to commit and they did at the several times hereinafter mentioned commit against the plaintiff the several unlawful and malicious acts below set forth, for the purpose and with the. intention of damaging and ruining plaintiff in his person, property, and repute, and of putting plaintiff and said Mission out of business in alleged competition with the said Holy Roman Apostolic Cath­ olic Church and said Church of the Immaculate Conception con- ducted by the defendant Tierney; and that to that end the de­ fendant Tierney procured the consent and authorization of the defendant Hayes to force plaintiff to close said St. Peter’s Mis­ sion and its relief station, and to enlist official aid of the other defendants for that purpose.

 

Thoughtful men will see in this “Complaint” filed in the Supreme Court a challenge, a daring and historic challenge,

1 Through an oversight Magistrate Dreyer is incorrectly referred to as Roman Catholic in this section.

Made to the Catholic Church to justify its alliance with the political arm. It exposes what virtually amounts to a Union of Church and State in the City of New York; it indicates corrupt Tammany as the secular arm of the Church. Never before perhaps, in a court record, did a Complaint in this manner defy both Church and State; never before was such a Complaint of such deadly necessity. Those-and they are many-who have at heart the best interests of this great

Empire City will eagerly await a verdict which will end for­ever the ruination of law and order through ecclesiastical “malfeasance.” For as the Complaint asserts (Par. XXIX): “all the injuries’ and damages have been inflicted upon (Father Norman] by the defendants willfully, maliciously, lawlessly, and corruptly.”

The first move to delay the action was made when the at­torneys of Hayes, Tierney, and Crain served motions to dis­miss the complaint on the grounds that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action as against them. These motions to dismiss were granted on February 24, 1933, by a Roman Catholic justice.

In due course Major Wheless appealed from the judg­ments dismissing the complaint against the parties named. Many legal obstacles and delays were put in his path but the judgments were at length unanimously reversed by the Appellate ·Division. At the time of writing Major Wheless is preparing to present his case to the Supreme Court for trial of the original action for conspiracy and malicious pros­ ecution.

The general public will await with interest to hear the argument in which Major Wheless will endeavor to link up H. E. Cardinal Hayes with the alleged conspiracy. No doubt he will base his plea on principles of Canon Law and attribute to the Cardinal responsibility for the actions of the Pastors of his diocese. How far his argument will influence a New York City jury remains to be seen. Neither Cardinal Hayes, nor indeed Father Tierney came out into the open in the campaign against Father Norman, but this fact i not a proof that they were not in it. To stand back from a fight for the Catholic Cause and allow lay Catholics ( and their henchmen) to deliver the blows is in perfect accord with clerical tactics in Catholic Action.

By way of conclusion to this tragic story of Father Norman let me point out, and I do it with deep sympathy for those concerned, that Catholic judges, jurors and lawyers find themselves in a terrible quandary when a case against a priest or bishop crops up. They know that the Church does not recognize the jurisdiction of the civil or criminal courts over her ecclesiastics. Canon Law insists that ecclesiastics can be lawfully and justly tried only by ecclesiastical courts, except in so far as the Church expressly hands over the culprits to the secular arm.     

• The Roman Catholic judge who tries a Bishop of Albany (Noonan case) or a Cardinal Hayes’ knows that in the eyes of his Church and in the light of his Faith he has no true jurisdiction over them. The same holds for Catholic jurors. It should be their duty to escape from their difficult position, if possible, by having the accused handed over to their religious superiors. Americans have·reason to question the suitability of Cath- olic judges and jurors in cases that involve Canon Law or the interests of the Catholic Church. Americans are right in asssuming that the consciences of Catholic judges and Catholic jurors are fettered in such cases.

The sincere and orthodox Catholic sees only one satisfac­tory and final solution of this problem, namely, that America yield to Rome and recognize the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical (Roman) courts.

 

Donald Trump has fallen into the dark abyss of ROMAN Law.