APPELLATE COURT WEIGHS SUIT OF PRIEST VS. DIOCESE
He claims Diocese of Palm Beach slandered him in sex abuse case.
A state appeals court on Wednesday wrestled with the thorny legal question of whether a Catholic priest can sue the Diocese of Palm Beach for defamation or whether the lawsuit is barred by the constitutional separation of church and state.
In a spirited discussion about the Rev. John Gallagher’s claims that the diocese slandered him by calling him a liar who needed “serious professional help” after he accused it of covering up sexual misconduct by a visiting priest, judges on the Miami-based 3rd District Court of Appeal struggled to understand how the suit could be decided without piercing church doctrine.
“The First Amendment doesn’t give the church carte blanche,” said attorney Philip Burlington, who represents the former pastor of Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church. “This case is about truth and falsity. He shouldn’t be left helpless in this situation.”
But attorney Mark Chopko, who represents the diocese, told the three-judge panel that there is no way for a jury to weigh Bishop Gerald Barbarito’s public rebuke of Gallagher without examining Gallagher’s employment history.
“Father Gallagher says he was punished because he was a whistle-blower,” Chopko said. “The diocese says it was because of his performance.”
To decide who is right would require testimony from Barbarito, an examination of church policies and other religious issues that are prohibited under the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, he said. “You can’t entangle the courts in the inner workings of the church,” Chopko said.
The case ended up in Miami after the entire 4th District Court of Appeal, in an unusual move,
said it was unable to decide the appeal the diocese filed after Palm Beach County Cir- cuit Judge Meenu Sasser in July ruled that Gallagher’s claims could be decided in state court without putting church doctrine on trial.
As is typical when judges recuse themselves, the West Palm Beach court didn’t explain why all 12 of its judges were unable to hear the appeal. Attorney Ted Babbitt, who represents Gallagher, said the silence is frustrating.
But he said he suspects one of the judges on the panel may have stepped aside for religious reasons. The court may have believed that reassigning the case to a new panel would have violated court policies that require cases to be ran- domly assigned. “How do you exclude Catholics?” he said of the court’s conundrum. But, he added, “It’s just a theory.”
Burlington insisted Gallagher’s case is a simple defa- mation case. A jury would only have to decide whether the diocese published false statements about Gallagher knowing they were was false or showing reckless disregard for the truth.
The diocese posted three statements on its website vehemently disputing Gal- lagher’s allegations that it ordered him not to tell authorities that the Rev. Jose Varkey Palimattom had shown pornographic pictures to a 14-year-old youth at the suburban West Palm Beach church in January 2015. Bar- barito also ordered a state- ment, blasting Gallagher’s allegations as “unfounded,” be read at all Masses in the five-county diocese in Jan- uary 2016.
After working with the Palm Beach County Sher- iff ’s Office to help prosecute Palimattom, Gallagher claims he was locked out of the rectory and the church.
Judge Edwin Scales III suggested Gallagher’s claims could be decided on “neu- tral principles” that have nothing to do with church doctrine.
Chopko countered that the diocese followed its own policies of how to deal with accused pedophile priests and helped prosecute Palimattom, but he said prov- ing that would necessarily involve an examination of those policies.
Judges Barbara Lagoa and Robert Luck voiced doubts that a secular court could determine Gallagher’s damages.
Burlington insisted that Gallagher’s pain and suffering and his loss of repu- tation could be determined by a secular court. Contrary to the church’s claims, the lawsuit isn’t a wrongful termination case, he said.
Luck noted, however, that similar cases have been thrown out. He read from a 2003 decision by the 4th District Court of Appeal that dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Seventh-day Adventist minister against church leaders.
“Courts may not consider employment disputes between a religious organization and its clergy because such matters necessarily involve questions of internal church discipline, faith, and organization that are governed by ecclesiastical rule, custom, and law,” the decision read.
Appeals courts typically take several months to issue rulings.