Quite so, my friend. In the Middle Ages, clerics were immune from suit or prosecution in the king's courts. This 'privilege of clergy' was backed up by canonical censures up to and including excommunication. It was the bone of contention between King Henry II and his Archbishop of Canterbury, St Thomas Becket, and in the case of Richard Hunne (1515) who was murdered in his cell in the Bishop of London's prison whilst awaiting trial on a charge of heresy.

The 1917 Code of Canon Law retained privilege of clergy and its associated penalty of excommunication, but for obvious political reasons it was rarely enforced, at least in countries where Catholics were in the minority. It was quietly dropped from the Code in the 1983 revision but still lingers in some clerical minds.

Whatever its outcome, the impending trial of Cardinal Pell will be a watershed in relations between church and state. Governments should now recognize the Pope as a religious leader only and not as a head of state.