VATICAN CITY (VATICAN CITY)
The Pillar [Washington DC]
November 10, 2025
The Church’s highest trial court reportedly ruled in favor of an American priest who sued over the release his name in a list of “credibly accused” clergy.
The Church’s highest canonical trial court has ruled in favor of an American priest who sued the religious order which released his name in a list of religious “credibly accused” of sexual abuse of minors, according to an Italian media report.
A Nov. 9 report published by La Repubblica said that the unnamed priest had successfully brought a claim for defamation before the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, under the norms of canon 220 of the Code of Canon Law, which bars the “illegitimate harm” of a person’s good reputation — a potentially landmark ruling with sweeping effects for how U.S. dioceses handle accusations of abuse.
The rota functions as the ordinary appellate court for judicial proceedings, and as the court of first instance in cases involving senior level Church institutions and heads of state.
La Repubblica reported that the rota “recently” heard the suit for defamation by the priest against his religious order at the appellate level, but did not indicate if the court’s findings affirmed or overturned a previous judicial verdict.
Sources close to the tribunal told The Pillar that a case concerning canonical defamation and “credibly accused lists” had been brought by an American priest and a ruling issued on June 26 of this year, but declined to confirm the details.
The publication and maintenance of lists of “credibly accused” clerics by American dioceses and religious orders has become common in the wake of the clerical sexual abuse scandals of the early 2000s and emerged to renewed prominence following the Theodore McCarrick scandal of 2018.
Dioceses argue that they are essential tools of accountability in recognizing historical accusations of abuse in which a criminal or canonical trial is not possible, and of transparency in ongoing cases which have not yet been adjudicated.
Critics of the practice argue that it violates the procedural rights of accused clerics, harms the reputation of deceased accused who cannot mount a defence, and prejudices any subsequent legal process.
Various Vatican departments have, for years, condemned the publication of such lists, and opposed the use of potentially prejudicial phrases like “credibly accused,” however American dioceses have largely ignored Roman instructions to halt the practice.
A ruling by the Roman Rota in favor of a priest suing for defamation over the practice would be potentially subject to an appeal to the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, but any such appeal would have to be made on narrowly defined procedural grounds.
While the rotal decision would not be enforceable in other dioceses and religious orders, it could trigger a wave of similar actions by other priests who claim they have also had their reputations illegitimately harmed.
A slate of verdicts in those cases could present American bishops and religious superiors with the difficult task of accommodating a Roman legal judgment alongside the advice of civil legal advice on liability — and likely accelerate proposals for an update to USCCB norms and policies for how accusations are handled.
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The Vatican department, which has responsibility for issuing authoritative interpretations of canon law, issued directives in September last year, before publishing them online in February.
In the guidance, the dicastery’s then-prefect Archbishops Filippo Iannone and secretary Juan Ignation Arrieta, wrote that Vatican guidance came after “a careful examination of the delicate question” of published lists, and said the dicastery had consulted “two esteemed canonists who are experts in the matter.”
Noting the general canonical protection of a person’s good reputation from “illegitimate” harm, the dicastery explained that while “in some cases the harm of good reputation can be legitimized, for example to avoid any danger or threat to individuals or to the community,” it would “not at all be legitimate when such a risk is reasonably to be excluded, as in the case of presumed deceased criminals, where there can be neither a legitimate nor proportionate reason for the damage to their reputation.”
The dicastery added that it is not permissible to publish lists of accused clerics “for alleged reasons of transparency or reparation (unless the subject consents and therefore once again excluding deceased persons).”
The letter stressed that Vatican objection to the practice of publishing lists of accused clerics goes beyond the practical inability of deceased clergy to defend themselves.
According to the dicastery, the core issues are instead fundamental legal principles: the presumption of innocence and the illegitimacy of charging anyone with a crime which was not codified at the time it was allegedly committed: “For example, with regard to the so-called omissions of the general duties of vigilance,” the letter said.
“Such principles,” the dicastery said, “cannot reasonably be overridden by a generic ‘right to information’ that makes any kind of news public domain, however credibly, to the concrete detriment and existential damage of those personally involved, especially if inaccurate, or even unfounded or false, or completely useless as in what concerns deceased persons.”
The letter also noted that diocesan determinations about whether an accusation is credible or “founded” are often made without regard for established legal standards, and “require a relatively low standard of proof,” and “without the benefit of any exercise of the right to defense” for the accused.
Since his election earlier this year, Pope Leo XIV, himself a canonist, has referenced frequently the need to balance the rights of clerics to legal due process against the need to handle all accusations of abuse in a manner respectful of victims.
In September, Leo named Archbishop Iannone to replace him as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops.
Initially, according to canon law, the DDF explained, the bishop is only supposed to determine if the allegation is “manifestly false or frivolous” — that it doesn’t allege a person committing a crime in a place at a time that would be clearly impossible. If it’s not obviously impossible, the bishop is to open a canonical preliminary investigation to determine if the allegation has a minimum “semblance of truth,” a minimum standard of plausibility meant only to assess if further investigation is necessary.
“It must always be kept in mind that the preliminary investigation is not a trial, nor does it seek to attain moral certitude as to whether the alleged events occurred,” the DDF said.
While bishops can, when they consider it prudent, remove an accused priest from ministry before or during the preliminary phase, both canon law and the DDF stress the need to avoid the impression that a verdict has been reached before an actual legal process has begun.
In its 2022 guidelines, the DDF specifically warned against any public statements which “could prejudice successive investigations or give the impression that the facts or the guilt of the cleric in question have already been determined with certainty.”
“Statements should be brief and concise, avoiding clamorous announcements, refraining completely from any premature judgment about the guilt or innocence of the person accused,” it says.
In 2002, in the wake of the Spotlight scandals, the U.S. adopted, with Vatican approval, the Dallas Charter and Essential Norms for the protection of minors.
In line with the norms, bishops were required to set up diocesan review boards — lay-led independent consultative bodies, which included experts from fields like law enforcement, the psychiatric and therapeutic professions, and victims-survivors’ advocates — to act as a “confidential consultative body to the bishop” on policy as well as on the assessment of individual allegations of abuse of minors.
While those boards have been crucial to the Church’s efforts in the United States to rebuild trust following the scandals of recent decades, it is often unclear how they fit into the canonical process.
In practice, many U.S. bishops delegate both the initial assessment of whether an accusation is obviously false and the determination of a “semblance of truth” which is supposed to trigger a formal canonical trial to their review boards to make recommendations to him.
But, in communicating their findings, these boards often issue public statements which seem to cut against the DDF’s canonical process and appear to arrive at settled conclusions about allegations before a real canonical process has even begun.
Most notably, review boards in the U.S. have standardized the use of terms like “credible” and “substantiated” to describe allegations, which can give the impression that they have been proven even before any formal canonical legal process has been opened.
While some U.S. dioceses seek to define the use of the terms narrowly, and emphasize that they do not signal a legal determination, critics have long argued that the common impression created of a declaration that an accusation is “credible and substantiated” damages a priest’s reputation beyond repair, even if he is subsequently exonerated.
In a lengthy interview earlier this year, Pope Leo stated that a challenge and priority for the development of canonical processes is for the Church to hold equally to the presumption of good faith of victims who come forward with accusations and the presumption of innocence for accused clerics.
As reported by The Pillar earlier this year, U.S. bishops’ conference is currently considering a proposal from Archbishop Shawn McKnight, submitted ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Dallas Charter and USCCB Essential Norms, which would see the bishops update their mutual commitments and policies to how abuse allegations are handled.
Part of the McKnight proposal, which has won public backing from senior U.S. canonists, includes a call for “clear guidelines from the competent USCCB committees to assist bishops in implementing the canonical provisions for penal and disciplinary processes, including the revised law of the past 25 years, which would also address due process concerns for the accused.”
The McKnight proposal specifically calls for bishops to undertake “every step possible to repair any harm caused to the accused person’s reputation” when an accusation is dismissed by a legal process.