Polish bishops unveil fines for canonical offenses

The financial penalties can be imposed for a wide variety of offenses, including disobedience to ecclesiastical authority.

A new canonical law entered into force in Poland Sunday, imposing financial penalties on clergy and lay personnel who violate Church law.

Polish banknotes and coins. Lalpino/wikipedia CC BY 4.0.

Under the new law, financial penalties can be imposed for a wide variety of offenses, including disobedience to ecclesiastical authority, misappropriation of Church property, and bribery.

The Polish bishops’ conference promulgated a general decree March 1 in response to Pope Francis’ 2021 overhaul of Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, which contains the Church’s universal penal law.

The decree specifically responded to the reintroduction of two provisions — canon 1336 § 2, n. 2, and canon 1336 § 4, n. 5 — that featured in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, but were removed during post-conciliar reforms that led to the 1983 Code.

The two canons concern “expiatory penalties,” which are punitive in nature, meant to satisfy justice, rather than “medicinal penalties,” which are aimed at the reform of the offender.

Canon 1336 § 2, n. 2, says that a Catholic who commits an offense can be required “to pay a fine or a sum of money for the Church’s purposes, in accordance with the guidelines established by the Episcopal Conference.”

Canon 1336 § 4, n. 5 says that a Church member can be deprived “of all ecclesiastical remuneration or part of it, in accordance with the guidelines established by the Episcopal Conference.”

The Polish bishops’ decree ties fines to the country’s minimum gross monthly wage, which is currently 4,806 Polish złotys (around $1,300) for full-time employees.

It says financial penalties must be between half and 20 times the minimum gross wage. This means the minimum fine would be 2,403 złotys (roughly $650) and the maximum 96,120 złotys (approximately $25,900).

The Church authority imposing the fine is responsible for designating an entity to which the money is paid. In recent years, Polish bishops who mishandled abuse cases have been asked to donate to the St. Joseph’s Foundation, a body established by the Polish bishops in 2019 to support abuse survivors.

A Church court or local bishop could require that fines for other kinds of canonical offenses be paid to Caritas or another Church institution.

The bishops’ decree says the penalty of deprivation of all or part of the ecclesiastical remuneration must not leave a cleric or lay worker without “the means necessary for decent maintenance.” The penalty cannot result in the punished person receiving less than 3,605 złotys (around $970) per month.

Polish bishops agreed on the principles for calculating payments associated with expiatory penalties at a plenary meeting in Gdańsk in October 2025.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops granted the Polish bishops’ decree recognitio (formal recognition) on Jan. 26, 2026, approving its promulgation.

Fr. Piotr Majer, a canon law professor at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, said bishops’ conferences worldwide were required to adapt the provisions of the Code of Canon Law to the legal and economic conditions prevailing in their territories.

“It should be clearly stated that it is not the Polish episcopate that imposes financial penalties. They were established by Pope Francis. The Polish bishops’ conference merely adapted them to Polish conditions,” he told the Polish Catholic news agency KAI, adding that other bishops’ conferences should do the same in their territories.

Explaining the purpose of expiatory penalties, he said: “They constitute a certain hardship that the punished offender should feel in order to improve himself. At the same time, they aim to restore the justice violated in the Church and repair the scandal caused by the offender.”

He added: “A fine is a penalty imposed on a convicted offender to pay a specified amount of money to the church. It is not, therefore, compensation for the damage caused to the victim of the crime — this should be done independently of the penalty — but a burden to be borne by the perpetrator.”

Majer said it would be almost impossible to compel a Polish lay person working for the Church to pay a fine. As civil courts are not required to consider canon law, a lay person would likely win if they appealed to a labor court, he noted.

“Therefore, it should be assumed that even if a Church judicial body were to impose a penalty on a lay believer — which practically never happens — it would apply a different penalty that would be better suited to the reality of the Church and the possibilities for enforcement,” he said.

“On the other hand, it is possible to effectively enforce financial penalties imposed on clergy, over whom the Church’s temporal power of punishment is real and not just theoretical.”