A Northwest Indiana priest believes the Vatican will excuse him from a criminal background check being demanded of everyone working with children in the Gary diocese.
The Rev. Michael Maginot, administrator of the St. Stephen Martyr Church and top adviser to Bishop Dale Melczek in church law, said Thursday he is refusing the bishop's requirement to submit his name to state police for any record of contact with law enforcement.
He is appealing to the Congregation for the Clergy, which interprets church law for Pope John Paul II.
"I anticipate the Vatican will side with me," Maginot said Thursday.
Brian Olszewski, a diocese spokesman, said the bishop is aware of Maginot's refusal, but isn't in town to comment.
The appeal could have national significance since a similar process is under way throughout all 194 Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States, Monsignor Francis Maniscalco, said a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of Child and Youth Protection.
He isn't aware of any other challenges to the background checks. He said the nation's bishops agreed to the policy two years ago in response to allegations of sexual abuse of children by some priests.
Olszewski said two other priests in the Northwest Indiana diocese objected to the background checks last month, but have now submitted to checks.
Maginot refuses. He said, "Canon law says one of the fundamental rights of every person is to privacy and a good name, and these rights are not to be illegitimately infringed upon.
"Legitimate reasons have to be strictly interpreted in law. I feel our bishop has gone a little wider than what is intended," Maginot said.
He said he has nothing in his background to worry about and is making his stand strictly on principle.
He said he has no objection if the diocese wants to compare its personnel list with Indiana's Sex and Violent Offender Registry, but a full background check could involve violations irrelevant to the church's recent campaign to protect children from sexual abuse.
He said the church is within its rights to screen new employees too, but he has been a priest for 21 years and believes he has earned the church's trust.
He said the screening may not offer protection anyway, since priests caught up in the sex scandal didn't have prior criminal records. "Its kind of window-dressing, " he said.
The Federal Trade Commission states federal law requires employers to obtain employees' written permission to conduct such checks and to inform employees of their civil rights if an adverse action results from the report.
Secular law cannot be used to fend off workplace background checks entirely, said Ivan Bodensteiner, a civil rights lawyer and professor at Valparaiso University.
"It's one of those areas where in most cases the government is not doing it, so constitutional notions of privacy aren't even in play." He said even the government is allowed to screen its employees and even conduct more intrusive examinations like drug testing for a safety-sensitive position," Bodensteiner said.