THE head of the Roman Catholic Church in Jamaica, Archbishop Edgerton Clarke, said yesterday that his predecessor, Samuel Carter, was “ill-advised” to have allowed former parliamentarian Ronnie Thwaites to use a piece of real estate that was willed to the church as collateral for a US$370,000 loan from the merchant bank, Dehring, Bunting and Golding (DB&G).

In fact, it emerged yesterday that the 1995 deal was actually done nearly two years before the will was probated and the title transferred to the church.

“This is not a practice of the Roman Catholic Church and it was ill-advised use of church property in which the church should not have become involved,” Archbishop Clarke told reporters.

However, the loan is now up-to-date with only US$70,000 remaining to be paid.

“The loan is being serviced by Mr Thwaites and in due time, the property will be freed of the mortgage,” Clarke said.

The archdiocese has been embroiled in open controversy since Thwaites, a lawyer and church deacon, publicly volunteered that an article by Observer columnist, Mark Wignall, speaking to the business dealings of a ruling People’s National Party (PNP) politician, referred to him although no names were called.

Thwaites resigned his parliamentary seat on Monday in the face of the mushrooming scandal, rejecting any claim of dishonesty and threatening to sue to clear his name.

But where Wignall had couched his allegations in cryptic and non-specific language, Thwaites revealed to the public in a radio interview that the issues referred to included him being allowed by Carter — now Archbishop Emeritus — to use the property to guarantee a debt.

The property, off Barbican Road in Kingston, had been left to the church by a parishioner who requested that it be used as a home for retired priests.

Carter, who was at the time on his way to retirement having reached 75, said last week that he granted Thwaites the favour after consultation with his advisors and on the grounds that Thwaites was a good man who had done an enormous amount of work for the Roman Catholic Church, free of cost.

Yesterday, Clarke was hard-pressed as to how the title for the property could have been used as collateral if it had not yet been legally handed over to the church.

“I understand the question that you are asking me…,” he told journalists “….The bank accepted it as collateral… it seems to me…. How the bank interpreted it, I don’t know… I wasn’t part of the whole deal.

“The fact is, the archbishop was the guarantor for the loan…,” he added.

Asked who advised the church on the deal, Carter said: “Archbishop Carter tells me that he consulted… He consulted with a body of priests.

“He can consult some attorney-at-law or whoever… But when the consultation was taken and the facts put, I wasn’t there… It seemed to have been suitable to them and they gave the advise.”

Clarke, formerly Bishop of Montego Bay, was installed in his current post on January 22, 1995, the same year when the transactions went through.

Carter, who turned 75 in July 1994, under the canons of the church, had to retire from the post of archbishop and subsequently performed his last rite as Roman Catholic archbishop of Kingston on January 15, 1995.

Clarke admitted that Carter had advised him about the loan when he became archbishop, but did not recall discussing his own views on the matter.

“I was advised but we never discussed whether I approved or not,” Carter said. “I don’t remember discussing whether I approved or not… I was just given the information.”

Clarke said that it was sometime later, after he had received information from DB&G that the loan had not been serviced for a period between 1996 and 1997, that he became concerned and launched his own investigation into the issue.

The deal has caused tensions within the Roman Catholic Church and there have been questions raised over whether Carter, who served as archbishop for more than two decades, had breached canon law.

But while conceding the transaction was “a very controversial issue”, Clarke suggested that the canon was sufficiently wide to accommodate the deal.

Father Michael Lewis, a canon lawyer, agreed.

“The present law of the church is such that it does not, as the archbishop has indicated, prescribe a very clear yes or no answer,” he said. “It gives a very broad framework as to how church property is used. Now one of the concerns that is being raised by many people is that the property was being alienated — alienated means being handed over absolutely– and it was not.”

In the meantime, Clarke said he has accepted Thwaites’ request for a leave of absence from his diaconate duties and that the church community “retains its prayerful support” for him.

“I am aware that there are allegations against Rev Mr Thwaites. At this time they are only allegations,” Clarke stressed.