Thanks for the explanation about church law, Joe. Also I don't have any issue with the Murphy case on the basis of what I've read so far and what you have just added. I accept that there is sometimes a place for compassion and that this was such an instance. I thought the same about Megrahi's return home to Libya, and I'm not very enthusastic about cases being pursued against octogenarians who had minor roles in Nazi death camps.

But Ed T's last post above brings the whole Vatican conspiracy right up to Ratzinger's door. And for me he is completely nailed by his letter to all bishops in 2001 (see report I linked to in my previous post). What was that if not direct interference in the criminal law?

Among Ireland's most prominent opinion formers it is now almost a given that catholicism is in its death throes in that country. If so, its writ will soon not run beyond the world's most under-developed third-world communities. The pope will be visiting Britain later in the year, and he would have done well to avoid that visit becoming an unmitigated disaster even without the Archbishop of Canterbury's extraordinary contribution this morning (again linked in my previous post). I wouldn't be surprised if he feels like retiring, but can see that his resignation now might do even more damage than hanging in.