When Diocesan Abuse Policies Violate Canon Law, by Phil Lawler

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture, Feb 26, 2025

Phil Lawler has been a Catholic journalist for more than 30 years. He has edited several Catholic magazines and written eight books. Founder of Catholic World News, he is the news director and lead analyst at CatholicCulture.org. 

In the past week, two important reports have called attention to the lingering, devastating fallout from the sex-abuse scandal. The fundamental problem today is the same problem that gave rise to the scandal in the first place: too many bishops are not acting like bishops.

First let me call your attention to an essay in First Things by Michael Mazza, with the provocative title: “Who’s Really Calling the Shots at US Diocesan Chanceries?” Mazza observes that Vatican II clearly taught that bishops are responsible for the operations of their own dioceses. In practice, however, “It seems that lawyers and risk managers, not bishops, are often running the show.”

Mazza can cite chapter and verse. Since 2002, when the Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire, caved in to demands from the state’s attorney general in order to avoid criminal prosecution, one diocese after another has agreed to prosecutors’ demands that endanger—in some cases openly violate—the Church’s own canon laws. …

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