TOULOUSE (FRANCE)
The Pillar [Washington DC]
July 11, 2025
By JD Flynn
Only the pope can overrule the Archbishop of Toulouse. Will he do it?
A French archbishop is standing by his decision to appoint as chancellor a priest who was convicted of raping a 16-year-old boy, and who spent four years in prison for the offense.
While Archbishop Guy de Kerimel of Toulouse argues that appointing the priest to a prominent archdiocesan position is an act of mercy, Catholics in France and the U.S. seem skeptical, with some asking why Fr. Dominique Spina is eligible for any diocesan assignment at all.
And as the archbishop doubles down in the face of criticism, the case seems almost certain to find itself on the desk of Pope Leo XIV, whose judgment on the case would speak volumes about what the Church can expect of the pontiff’s approach to safeguarding.
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The Archdiocese of Toulouse broke into the headlines Monday, when the early June appointment of Fr. Dominique Spina as archdiocesan chancellor caught the attention of French journalists — little surprise, given that in 2005, Spina was sentenced to prison for raping a 16 and 17 year old boy in the early 1990s, when Spina was a heigh school chaplain.
According to French media, the priest’s victim was a high school student from an abusive home, who wanted to become a priest, and who relied on Spina as a spiritual guide.
In the early 2000s, the priest was accused of having forced the teenager into acts of oral sex, among other acts of sexual coercion. Spina initially confessed, and subsequently retracted his confession before a judge, saying he had misunderstood the allegations against him. But while some charges were reportedly restricted by the state statute of limitations, the priest was sentenced to five years incarceration, with one year of the prison term suspended.
Spina was not laicized.
That fact has caused confusion for some Catholics, because the Church’s canon law provides for the laicization of a cleric who commits “an offense against the sixth commandment” involving a minor.
But in the years Spina committed sexual crimes against the student, canon law defined a minor — for purposes of the statutes regarding sexual crimes — as a person under 16 years of age.
In the United States, Pope St. John Paul allowed in 1994 a kind of exception to the Church’s universal law, raising in the U.S. the canonical age of a minor — for purposes of criminal law regarding sexual abuse — to 18.
In 2001, the motu proprio Sacramentorum sanctitatis tutela extended that provision to the universal church.
Crimes are assessed according to the law in force at the time the crime was committed — meaning, in other words, that Spina could not be canonically convicted of sexually abusing a minor, and laicized as penalty for that crime, because of the age limits at the time of his action.
There is another provision of canon law which allows for the laicization of a cleric who commits “an offense against the sixth commandment … by force or threats.”
That would seem to fit the bill for the case against Spina. But for reasons that are not publicly available, the priest does not seem to have faced a canonical trial under those charges — or if he did, seems not to have been found guilty in a canonical process.
According to some media reports, Spina claimed at his criminal trial a degree of consensuality in his relationship with the student. Today it would not be accepted that a priest chaplain could have a consensual relationship with a teenager under his spiritual care. But it is not clear whether Spina was not laicized because of doubt about that fact at the Holy See, or whether the potential criminality of his action in that sense was seriously considered in Rome — especially in an era already known for pervasive canonical antinomianism, and a preference for a therapeutic approach to even grave sexual misconduct among clerics.
For his part, Toulouse’s Archbishop de Kerimel said in a statement Thursday that while the case was sent to Rome, the Vatican “did not dismiss him from the clerical state, i.e., the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith judged that he could still carry out a ministry.”
de Kerimel did not elaborate on how the Vatican reached its conclusion, or the details of DDF considerations of the case.
But he did argue that the Vatican’s judgement of Spina — namely that he “could still carry out of a ministry” — was the cornerstone of his own approach to the priest, whom he said has evidence “clear signs of conversion and life change” since his criminal conviction.
And while the archbishop recognized the “lifelong pain” of victims — including Spina’s — he pushed back on the idea to a ranking office in the archdiocese, a senior staff position responsible for maintaining diocesan archives and records, should cause concern.
To de Kerimel, the chancellor’s position is mainly administrative, the chancellor “a man of the shadows in the diocese,” with “no leading role.”
In fact, de Kerimel even suggested that Spina’s move from vice chancellor to chancellor should not “be understood … as a promotion,” despite the fact that canon law explicitly refers to the vice chancellor as the chancellor’s assistant.
For de Kerimel, the arguments in favor of Spina’s appointment seem to boil down to two. First, that in his view chancellor is a relatively unimportant role far removed from direct ministry, and second, that Spina has exhibited “clear signs of conversion and life change.”
“Is it possible to show mercy to a priest who sinned gravely 30 years ago, and who has since demonstrated self-sacrifice and integrity in his service and his relationship with his superiors and fellow priests?” the archbishop asked.
“Pope Francis said that God is Mercy, that’s his Name. And we Christians are witnesses to God’s mercy.”
But de Kerimel’s view on those issues is clearly out of step with many Catholics.
Critics argue that the chancellor of a diocese is entrusted with a great deal of responsibility, including oversight over the acts of other penal cases in the Church’s life. They also say it is a prominent position because of its closeness to the ministry of the bishop himself.
And they argue that the archbishop’s insistence on mercy is actually a perverse kind of clericalism — that when de Kerimel talks about mercy, he seems to think only of the desires of a priest in his diocese, rather than on the message communicated to victims by the appointment. Mercy, they argue, does not require appointment to a high-profile job.
For some, the message seems to be that a priest can find at least some places in the Church where the mere fact of his ordination covers over the consequences for his past, and that any claim toward “zero tolerance” for abusers in the Church has a long road to credibility.
That, some argue, is the most dangerous message in Spina’s appointment — that victims might see in Spina’s new job that neither their healing nor their safety will be prioritized in the Church over a preference for “mercy” toward wayward clerics, even for a priest who abused a teenager.
And while de Kerimel himself would likely push back on charges of clericalism in his decision-making, critics make on argument in response: That a layman with a rape conviction on his record would not likely be appointed the chancellor of any diocese, anywhere in the world.
Nevertheless — regardless of the consequences, prudence, or advisability, de Kerimel is right when he insists that he has the legal right to appoint Spina to an ecclesiastical office — the priest is not laboring under any canonical penalty, and restrictions on his faculties or public ministry do not prevent him from occupying his chancery position.
But the bishop is bound canonically by a matter of prudential judgment — the code stipulates that a diocesan chancellor must be of “unimpaired reputation” to take up his job.
de Kerimel says Spina fits that bill. And regardless of the public outcry over his judgment, there is only one person competent to overrule the Toulouse archbishop on that front — Pope Leo XIV.
The pontiff is now at Castel Gandolfo his summer holiday, he is new in the Petrine office, and he is likely reluctant to intervene directly into governance of particular churches around the world — and especially reluctant to give the impression that he can be cornered into action by media outcry.
But for the pope, the appointment of Fr. Spina threatens to become the case by which his approach to safeguarding is measured — without intervention, Spina could become a symbol of papal inaction, as did men like Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta and Fr. Marko Rupnik during the Francis papacy.
Such a symbol would be greatly discouraging for those abuse survivors and advocates who are hoping for a change in tone from the Apostolic Palace in the Leonine papacy.
But they’re not the only ones watching. The Spina appointment has made headlines because it is shocking, and the archbishop’s defense has become the talk of water coolers in many parts of the Church.
In fact, around the world, the Church is now waiting to see whether Leo will pick up the phone, to call de Kerimel at his chancery. Whether he does or not, the pontiff’s decision will seem to speak volumes.