The state's highest court ruled Thursday that a Roman Catholic order cannot claim constitutional protection of religious freedom to withhold personnel files of a priest charged with sexual abuse.
In a 4-3 decision, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected one of the arguments used by the Rev. James F. Talbot and the Society of Jesus of New England, known as Jesuits, who have refused to turn over documents demanded by Suffolk County prosecutors.
The narrow decision does not mean prosecutors are assured of getting the documents. Still unresolved are whether attorney-client protections and privileges surrounding church confessions and counseling can be used to withhold documents.
Writing for the majority, Justice Martha Sosman said the state has a ``compelling interest in obtaining these documents ... and that those interests outweigh the claimed interest of keeping these communications confidential.''
Dissenting justices wrote that the decision may dissuade church institutions from doing their own investigations of alleged sexual assaults by clergy, and one argued that the court ruling undermined religious freedom.
Talbot, 66, has pleaded innocent to one count of rape and one count of assault with attempt to rape. He is accused of molesting two of his students at Boston College High School in the 1970s.
Talbot, who is out on bail, and his attorney, Timothy P. O'Neill, did not immediately return calls for comment, nor did a lawyer and a spokesman for the Jesuits.
The Jesuits, one of the Catholic Church's largest religious orders, are noted educators who operate many colleges and secondary schools, including Boston College and BC High.
Also Thursday, a former priest in the Diocese of Rockford, Ill., was sentenced to eight years in prison after he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two Catholic school students.
Mark Campobello was charged in 2002 with sexually abusing a female student in 1999 at St. Peter School in Geneva. The second charge was filed after a student at Aurora Central Catholic High School came forward with additional allegations of abuse.