Making sense of ‘Vos estis’ after Francis

Is Francis’ signature motu proprio a product of the pope, or of circumstances?

Inside the coffin of Pope Francis is a document known as a rogito: a brief, biographical overview of a deceased pope’s life and the key events in his ecclesial ministry, held in a sealed metal tube.

A statue of St. Helen in St. Peter’s Basilica, photographed on April 25, 2025, as Pope Francis lay in state ahead of his funeral. © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk.

The rogito of Pope Francis speaks in broad terms of his concern for the poor and marginalized, his commitment to ecumenical dialogue, and his missionary attitude. But it also speaks in more detailed terms of his canonical reforms, reminding us that Francis “toughened legislation regarding crimes committed by clerics against minors or vulnerable persons” — a reference to his 2019 apostolic letter Vos estis lux mundi (“You are the Light of the World”).

The rogito is simply a big-picture summary of a life and pontificate. This is just as well for those who compiled it; offering any more substantial commentary on how the norms of Vos estis cohere with Francis’ broader style of governance as pontiff has proven too much for many commentators, and not for want of trying.

Vos estis provides for the delegation the Holy See’s power to investigate Church leaders who have no superior other than the pope himself (such as diocesan bishops) to a metropolitan archbishop, in cases where a bishop has been accused either of sexual abuse or of mismanaging abuse cases.

As well as the substance of its norms, Vos estis is also notable for its highly theological introduction, which asserts that “the crimes of sexual abuse offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to the victims and harm the community of the faithful,” and exhorts the Church to “learn from the bitter lessons of the past, looking with hope towards the future.”

But, for many Vatican-watchers, the Francis’ call for “concrete and effective actions” to combat abuse does not sit comfortably with what we know of his own actions (or inactions) in high-profile cases such as those of Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, Fr. Marko Rupnik and Roger Vangheluwe.

The First See may well be judged by no one, but in a digital media age it is scrutinized by everyone — and the confusion that many of the faithful feel witnessing these apparent inconsistencies is perhaps inevitable and understandable.

So, as we continue to reflect on the legacy of the Francis pontificate, and assess what likely challenges face his successor Pope Leo XIV, how are we to make sense of Vos estis?

Perhaps one approach would be to consider if Vos estis is really best considered first and foremost as a wholly unique product of the Francis pontificate.

Instead, we might consider that some form of Vos estis was simply what had to happen in the Church in the aftermath of the year 2018 — regardless of the particular theological convictions or style of governance of whoever was pope at the time.

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It is worth recalling quite how much of a landmark year 2018 was in the clerical sexual abuse crisis. In May 2018, all the bishops of Chile offered their resignations en masse to Pope Francis following the publication of a report by Archbishop Charles Scicluna into clerical abuse and cover-up within their dioceses.

In June, allegations of sexual abuse by the then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick began to emerge, leading to his resignation from the College of Cardinals and suspension from public ministry in July.

In August, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report into clerical abuse in six Pennsylvania dioceses was released, creating a national scandal and international headlines.

In October, a Holy See press release announced the beginnings of an investigation into McCarrick, saying that “a different treatment for bishops who have committed or covered up abuse … is no longer acceptable,” and reminding the Church that Pope Francis had called for a global meeting on the protection of minors in the Church to be held in Rome in February of 2019.

Given the events of the previous months, it was little surprise when it was announced that this upcoming meeting would focus on “three main themes of responsibility, accountability and transparency” in the Church’s response to the abuse of minors.

And if 2018 were itself not eventful enough, the Polish abuse expert Fr. Adam Żak has observed that all this took place in the wake of the final report of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, published in late 2017. This report’s findings were strikingly and tragically similar to those of the (better-known and better-publicised) Pennsylvania grand jury report, and whose recommendations focused on reform in the Church’s law and governance.

All in all, it’s unsurprising that the then-member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Fr. Hans Zollner S.J., described 2018 as “a year of change” for the Church, in a public lecture two months after the promulgation of Vos estis. It was a year in which we entered “another level of awareness” of the underlying, systemic causes of the abuse crisis.

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Although it had been clear since the late 1980s that the Church was facing a crisis of episcopal accountability as well as clerical misconduct, the events of 2018 were remarkable in various ways.

Never before had an entire national episcopate resigned simultaneously, as in the case of Chile. That another major scandal could hit the USCCB so many years after the implementation of the Essential Norms was shocking.

Various regional reports into ecclesial abuse had already recommended that the Church emphasize episcopal responsibility and the consistent application of canon law in its response to the crisis.

But the recommendations of Pennsylvania and Australia took on particular force given the context in which they were published. It’s reasonable to conclude that the need for a systemic response to clerical sexual abuse —one that incorporated mechanisms for accountability and transparency among bishops — was given new urgency by the revelations of 2018.

This would also explain why the 2019 Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church focused its promised discussions of “responsibility, accountability and transparency” on the episcopate. Revisiting the speeches given at the summit, there are clear connections to be made between the summit’s discussions of the responsibilities of bishops and the content of Vos estis.

Germany’s Cardinal Reinhard Marx, for instance, called for greater procedural transparency to combat “the abuse of power in the area of administration” in clerical abuse cases. Archbishop Scicluna focused on the role and responsibility of bishops in the initial investigation of abuse allegations. Nigeria’s Sr. Veronica Openibo, S.H.C.J. even cited Matthew 5:14, the passage which provides Vos estis with its incipit (opening), as a passage that had inspired her in the drafting of her speech.

India’s Cardinal Oswald Gracias, meanwhile, suggested the Church move away from “a certain Roman centralism” which meant “our local church competencies and our skills as responsible shepherds of our local churches are not appropriately used.”

But the most detailed suggestions for reform came from Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich, who called on the Holy See to “explore the use of the Metropolitan [in clerical abuse investigations], given his traditional role in ordering ecclesial life” in a set of proposals which closely resemble the draft policy he had submitted months earlier to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

This isn’t to say that Vos estis bears none of the distinguishing marks of Pope Francis’ pontificate. As has been noted before, the expansion of the role of metropolitan archbishops in matters of governance was theologically significant, rather than simply legally possible, within Pope Francis’ vision of synodality.

And the kind of collaboration, discussion, and consultation on display at the summit on the protection of minors in the Church, which arguably gave Vos estis so many of its distinguishing features, was also essential to the late pope’s synodal vision.

It is also worth acknowledging that speculation can only take us so far.

It’s true that the Church’s response to clerical sexual abuse is not merely a matter of interpreting legal principles, but also — as the pronouncements of successive popes have made clear — of acknowledging and responding to actual abuses and actual cover-ups.

All the same, the nitty-gritty of drafting magisterial texts is rarely made public, and when it is, it is only at the discretion of those involved.

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We are unlikely to ever know for certain what factors had the greatest influence on the drafting of Vos estis. But the process of considering what they might have been can help offset the temptation to see papal personality as the primary factor in all matters of Church governance.

Both Pope Francis and Pope Leo had experience as religious superiors before being elected to the See of Peter. Adage has it that being a good superior is like being a good gardener: you look at the garden to see what is growing and where, and rather than uprooting everything to remake the garden to your personal liking, you work out how best to help each plant to flourish in the place and the manner God has planted it.

To understand the background to Vos estis a little better, we can hold this image of governance as gardening side-by-side with a homily given by Pope Leo’s own Holy Father, St Augustine of Hippo, on Our Lord’s parable of the tares and the wheat.

Speaking of the seats of bishops, St. Augustine asked: “For do ye think, my brethren, that these tares we read of do not get up into this seat? Think ye that they are all below, and none above up here? ... I tell you of a truth, my beloved, even in these high seats there is both wheat, and tares.”

As the Church continues to develop its response to the ecclesial abuse crisis, the gardeners of the universal Church have been called simply to observe where the tares are growing — even those tares on the highest of seats — and to work the garden accordingly.

Odd as it may seem in an age where papal personality looms so large in our understanding of the Petrine ministry, it may be best to think of Pope Francis’ flagship clerical abuse reform as actually having relatively little to do with Pope Francis himself, and more to do with the state of the garden in 2019.

It remains to be seen how his successor will continue the work of weeding the tares. But there is no doubt that this is what the work of the garden requires.