How to Remove a "Bad" Bishop

By Robert Mickens
Commonweal
June 8, 2016

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/letter-rome-82

Pope Francis has been both applauded and criticized for creating a new process for investigating and eventually removing bishops for negligence, especially in their oversight of sexual abuse cases. He lays it out carefully in a new motu proprio published last Saturday under the title Come una madre amorevole (Like a loving mother).

Some see this initiative as the start of a Copernican revolution in the Vatican’s approach to the (still very far from over) clergy sex abuse crisis, while others think it is actually much ado about nothing.

Most commentators have claimed that Canon Law (can. 192-195) already provides for the removal of bishops, and the new motu proprio merely spells out a process whereby one of four different Vatican congregations actually go about this. But, in fact, bishops are not specifically mentioned in those canons, which deal only generically with “removal of ecclesiastical office” at all levels.

In his new document, Pope Francis removes all doubt and says a congregation can investigate a bishop and issue a “decree of removal” if it deems the prelate has been negligent of his pastoral duties in a “very grave” way. Furthermore, it says such negligence need only be “grave” when concerning the abuse of minors or vulnerable adults.