Havoc, we are talking about two different things here - I was speaking in my post to RobbyS of ecclesiastical law, not civil law. And I was speaking in the context of Vatican 11 and the way we conduct Mass, etc.
The decretals that you are hung up on have nothing to do with what I was talking about. That decretal issue was settled quite a few years ago (like hundreds) - get over it!
The Catholic Church exists, period. Nothing will change that, not decretals, not pedophile priests, not you, nothing. You are wasting your time attacking something that has nothing to do with the present day. It's like you are living in the past and trying to come up with anything at all to sling at the Church in order to prove she's wrong - why? You disagree with everything the Church stands for, and I respect that. Because you disagree, you do not belong to the Church, and that is how it should be.
And that has what bearing on the facts. The RCC put ecclesiastical law above civil law. The forgeries it adopted as law were also adopted by civil authorities of Europe. The RCC still holds to the forged canon that was put in place and still thinks itself above the law, though it presents itself before civil authority when it feels it must. That is not the same thing as being subject to the law. If a priest breaks ecclesiastical law and thusly civil law, he is first answerable to the proper civil authorities, then to the Church. Try addressing that point. Because it is most relevant. I'll not address the pointless rhetoric that accompanied the above.