Charles Wilson: What Happens When Bishops Are Found Wanting?
Here’s a canon law article from the July 31, 2008 Christifidelis, a publication of The Saint Joseph Foundation. Digital version is courtesy of Catholic Culture.
What Happens When Bishops Are Found Wanting?
by Charles M. Wilson
More than a few faithful Catholics perhaps would be tempted to answer this question with one word, “nothing.” And the members of the Saint Joseph Foundation’s professional staff, with combined experience of approximately fifty years, might well sympathize. But I would also point out that while “nothing” might apply to many of the cases that we have seen it cannot be applied to all. To say that bishops are never called to account would be incorrect. Be that as it may, however, the harm done to souls by inept or mean-spirited bishops is beyond human reckoning and the existing evidence, scant though it may be, indicates that far too little has been done to repair the damage.
In the aftermath of the eruption of the sexual abuse crisis in 2002, there has been no lack of criticism of the U.S. bishops by the secular media. Many of the Catholic faithful believe as well that their bishops’ handling of sexual abuse complaints has been negligent or even-reckless.1 But this article is not about the obvious shortcomings displayed by the American bishops in dealing with sexually abusive clerics. In this article, my key concern is about what has happened — or not happened — whenever there has been good reason to believe that diocesan bishops have fallen short of fulfilling their responsibilities to teach and to defend the faith (canon 386), to foster the common discipline of the Church (c. 392) and to administer the temporal goods of the Church in accord with the norms of law (canon 393).
As revolting and destructive as the sexual abuse issue is, it is the exercise of ecclesiastical office with respect to upholding the teaching and laws of the Church that is more closely related to the work of the Saint Joseph Foundation. After all, in almost twenty-four years of existence, the Foundation has received only a handful of complaints related to sexual abuse, while we have received thousands of complaints alleging deficient or erroneous teaching, violations of liturgical norms and the abusive exercise of the ministry of governance. Using the very limited amount of data available, I will try here to give our readers some idea of what has happened whenever bishops’ performance in these areas has been called into question.
What Does the Law Provide?
