Subhuman procedures and secrets

The procedures used are sometimes quite medieval, with a callous secrecy that doesn’t allow the defendant to defend himself and obliges him to beat about in the dark, to be anxious, because he doesn’t know from whom the accusation comes nor what he is accused of. And if he asks, he is not told either.

Things are often attributed to him which he is unaware of – if he knew, he could easily refute them – and the only consolation he has left is to offer his sufferings to God and to think that something similar happened to Jesus: nemo tamen palam loquebatur de illo propter metum Iudaeorum (John 7:13), no one spoke publicly about him, for fear of the Jews.

It isn’t simply that the system is old. It is because it is unjust – even if a report or many reports are issued, or even a trial – if the interested party or his defenders cannot know the terms of the accusation; for very often the accuser is moved by personal prejudice, quite foreign to justice.

Accusers gamble their souls

For this reason, in such sad cases, the accusers themselves and those who judge cause me more sorrow than those who appear to be the guilty ones: the former risk their souls, whereas to the latter the words of first Letter of St Peter can apply: si quid patimini propter iustitiam, beati (1 Pet 3:14); if you suffer on account of justice, you are blessed.