Pope Leo reviewing ‘special faculties’ for laicization
Are changes coming at the Dicastery for Clergy?
Pope Leo XIV is reviewing the authority of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy to use procedures introduced first by Benedict XVI for the laicization of clerics in special circumstances.
Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution Praedicate evangelium on the reform of the Roman curia gives the dicastery the authority to administratively dispense clergy from the clerical state, a normalization of special faculties created by Benedict in 2009, for priests who have abandoned ministry or engaged in “seriously scandalous behavior.”
But the use of special processes has come under scrutiny in and outside of Rome, with some expressing concern that the procedure has been applied too broadly and liberally, and others expressing concern that the Dicastery for Clergy, already understaffed, is stretched too thin to handle cases expeditiously.
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Several dicasteries of the Roman curia have special legal powers to handle certain kinds of cases under their jurisdiction. But since those powers are special extensions of papal power outside the otherwise established competence of the departments, they lapse with the death of the pope.
In the case of the Dicastery for Clergy, the special faculties which allow for the processing of cases for involuntary laicization via administrative process in certain circumstances have not been confirmed by Pope Leo, remaining in abeyance since the death of Pope Francis last year.
The specific cases covered by the special faculties concern cases in which a priest has abandoned ministry for a period of at least five years, is living in cohabitation with or attempted marriage to a woman, or other cases of grave scandal.
The treatment of these many such cases was broadly folded into a revised edition of the Church’s canonical penal code in 2021, but since that new law cannot be applied retrospectively, the special faculties were retained to handle past cases.
But with the faculties not restored to the Dicastery for Clergy, senior Vatican officials have told The Pillar that the dicastery itself made a proposal to Pope Leo in which the dicastery would lose the authority to pursue such laicizations entirely, or see the process limited to cases of long-term abandonment of ministry.
“The idea is that an administrative procedure can be used for laicization only in very specific cases, such as abandonment of ministry, while most [unrequested] laicizations would be conducted by canonical courts,” a senior Vatican official told The Pillar.
“The administrative procedure was open to being abused,” another Vatican official told The Pillar. “It didn’t provide the priest with enough guarantees, the dicastery has way too much work, and an administrative decision of this kind is unappealable when the pope approves it in forma specifica. But popes usually don’t have time to read the small letters of every single case, so that’s problematic.”
“So, while the dicastery has very good people working there, the general feeling is that the process didn’t give enough rights to the priest in question,” the official added.
However, such a proposal would mean that already overburdened canonical courts would have to handle more cases of laicization than they already do.
“The solution here wouldn’t be to bring every single case to Rome, of course. But the tools are there: France already has a national penal canonical court, and I think that has been a mostly positive experience,” a Vatican official told The Pillar.
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In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI granted special legal faculties to the then-Congregation (now Dicastery) for Clergy to handle petitions for the laicization of clerics in certain circumstances not specifically covered by the Code of Canon Law, including instances of priests “who have engaged in seriously scandalous behavior.”
While those special faculties were drafted and promulgated primarily to deal with diocesan priests, not clerical members of religious orders, the Dicastery for Clergy was also granted the competence to hear cases involving religious priests, with involvement from the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.
Those faculties were subsequently folded into the Code of Canon Law in 2021, when Pope Francis issued a new version of the Church’s penal code, and the competence of the Dicastery for Clergy to hear cases of a religious superior petitioning for the laicization of a priest was underscored by the promulgation of Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution for the Roman curia, Praedicate Evangelium, last year:
“The Dicastery [for Clergy] is responsible for handling, in conformity with the canonical norms, matters having to do with the clerical state as such, for all clergy, including members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and for permanent deacons, in cooperation with the competent Dicasteries whenever circumstances so demand,” the constitution says.
“The [same] Dicastery is competent for cases of dispensation from the obligations assumed by ordination to the diaconate and priesthood [laicization] involving diocesan clerics and members of Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life from the Latin Church and from the Eastern Churches.”
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In December 2022, the French bishops’ conference established the world’s first national penal canonical tribunal, which has the authority to judge offenses against the faith and unity of the Church and against the exercise of office, including financial crimes and sexual crimes involving adults.
Diocesan bishops still have the authority and duty to conduct the preliminary investigation after receiving a complaint and of implementing the tribunal’s sentences.
In an interview with La Vie, Bishop Joseph de Metz-Noblat, president of the canonical commission of the French bishops, said that the bishops had thought of “finding a way to ‘relocate’ judicial criminal trials so that the bishop of the accused cleric is no longer at the center of the proceedings.”
“For many bishops, this will be a relief: we initiated the creation of this tribunal to get out of a situation where the bishop must be both the brother of his priests and their judge. It was important to clarify the registers of their relationship,” de Metz-Noblat added.
“I think a solution would be to establish national or metropolitan penal courts for these cases, such as the one in France. I don’t think diocesan penal tribunals are enough, because there’s always significant potential for a conflict of interest,” a Vatican official told The Pillar.
However, the same official told The Pillar that the lack of qualified personnel could be an issue.
“It also happens that some dioceses, even big dioceses, don’t have enough judges and canonists. I know of dioceses in Africa that have over a million Catholics, hundreds of priests and religious, dozens of deacons, and only one or two people with a license in canon law. There are diocesan canonical courts in Latin America that judge cases from almost 15 different dioceses and have perhaps only four or five people working in the tribunal.”
“How is it that there are countries with hundreds or even thousands of priests, dozens of dioceses, 30 dioceses, numerous seminaries, dozens of religious institutes, millions of Catholics, and don’t have a single canon law school? That’s not right,” the official told The Pillar.
The same official added that national courts can help the issue by putting the resources from many dioceses together.
“No diocese would need to have many canonists that are experts in penal law, but maybe only one or two so that they work in the national tribunal. So, this is helpful in cases of a lack of personnel, but bishops need to wake up to this issue,” the official added.
Several Vatican officials told The Pillar that the pope’s canonical experience means he understands this issue personally.
“It’s a different thing to have a pope that listens to his canonical advisors, but doesn’t really understand the issue at stake, with a pope that understands it personally because he’s a canonist,” one Vatican official told The Pillar.
“The pope studied canon law and was a canonical judge during his time in Peru, so that changes things. When you talk with him about canon law, you can tell he understands these problems from a personal perspective, you don’t need to explain much,” another official added.