The news, coming through a press release on a Friday evening in mid-November, was unexpected. Bishop Howard Hubbard, the retired leader of the Diocese of Albany, New York, and now under investigation for both allegedly abusing children and covering up abuse done by others, was requesting the Vatican remove his status as a priest, or laicize him.

Among those caught by surprise were Hubbard’s alleged victims, as well as the civil attorneys representing them. They, along with canon lawyers well-versed in the Catholic Church’s disciplinary procedures for clerics accused of sexual misconduct, are struggling to make sense of Hubbard’s request.

Some suspect that Hubbard may be trying to short-circuit a canonical investigation by preemptively assuming the most severe punishment that the church can impose on a cleric. Others think Vatican machinations are at play, and wonder if Hubbard is following the advice of church officials in Rome to…