Controversy deepened Saturday over a recent Vatican attempt to reinstate a former priest twice convicted of sexual abuse of minors in Argentina, after an interview with the Vatican’s top canon lawyer suggested that Pope Francis could be personally involved in the case.
As questions linger about the Vatican’s handling of the abuse case, focus will now likely shift from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State to Pope Francis himself.
In an Oct. 19 interview with official Vatican media, Archbishop Filippo Iannone of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts pointed out that officials at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State can be legitimately involved in clerical abuse cases when they act as confidential couriers for decisions reached by other Vatican departments competent to deal with those cases.
But Iannone also pointed out that appeals by or for priests laicized for abuse crimes can only be considered by the pope personally, or by others acting under his personal delegation.
While the comments by the canonical dicastery’s prefect appear aimed at explaining the involvement of papal chief of staff Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra in a controversial case in Argentina last month, the interview raises new questions about Pope Francis’ personal involvement in the case — and whether the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s disciplinary section was able to effectively veto a decision put in motion by Pope Francis.
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Príncipi was found guilty of the sexual abuse of minors and laicized by two canonical tribunals in his native Argentina in a trial and appeal authorized by the DDF, the Vatican department which has exclusive competence in cases of clerical abuse of minors.
However, a Sept. 23 order signed by Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, sostituto at the Secretariat of State and papal factotum, ordered Príncipi’s reinstatement as a cleric following an “extraordinary procedure” exonerating the priest of abuse and instead finding him guilty only of being “very reckless.”
The order gave no indication of what or whose legal authority was invoked to overturn Príncipi’s conviction or convene a new process. Barely a week later Archbishop John Joseph Kennedy, head of the DDF’s disciplinary section, declared Peña Parra’s order void, directing that Príncipi’s laicization should stand — an unprecedented clash between the two most senior Vatican departments.
Few details about the “extraordinary process” to reinstate the former priest and overturn his conviction were communicated to Príncipi’s former diocese of Villa de la Concepción del Río Cuarto, either by Archbishop Peña Parra or Archbishop Kennedy.
In response to those questions, official Vatican media published Saturday a question-and-answer interview with the head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Legislative Texts intended to address “several media articles [which] have offered various interpretations regarding the canonical procedures for reserved crimes.”
Archbishop Filippo Iannone explained to Vatican News that the DDF had exclusive competence to handle cases of clerical sexual abuse of minors, and was the proper department to consider any appeals from a convicted cleric.
Still, Iannone said, “it is also possible to request a review in the form of mercy; in this case, the procedure is ordinarily handled by the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, but it may also be entrusted to other bodies.”
“Given the confidential nature of such communications, the Secretariat of State coordinates the various instances and sends the relevant decisions for the execution of the adopted measures.”
The archbishop’s explanation appeared aimed directly at addressing speculation over Peña Parra’s role in the Príncipi case, suggesting he was merely acting as high-ranking postman for a decision from the Signatura, the Church’s canonical supreme court of appeal, which may have been the true author of the “extraordinary process” to overturn Príncipi’s conviction.
In practice, Ianonnone’s comments shifted focus from the papal chief of staff’s role in the affair onto Pope Francis himself.
Ianonnone’s observed that final appeals for “mercy” “may also be entrusted to other bodies” like the Apostolic Signatura, but because such cases are under the exclusive authority of the DDF, they can only be entrusted to another such body by the pope personally — suggesting that Francis himself intervened in the case and cleared the way for Príncipi’s reinstatement, despite his being convicted of abusing minors and laicized by two tribunals in the pope’s home country.
While Iannone did not address the Príncipi case directly, he noted that “the procedure is ordinarily handled by the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.”
However, Article 116 of the signatura’s own proper law makes clear that the court only intervenes in such cases when delegated to consider “a petition for a favor that can be granted by the Roman Pontiff alone” and acts only to consider “whether His Holiness is to be advised to grant the favor.”
The suggestion that the “extraordinary process” to clear Príncipi was ordered by the pope as a special favor under personal papal authority would make Archbishop Kennedy’s subsequent intervention to void the process and re-laicize Príncipi even more extraordinary, since it would suggest he acted to overturn an act authorized by the pope directly, or a process initiated by him.
Although Peña Parra offered few details about the legal process which attempted to reinstate Príncipi, he did inform the local diocese last month that the “extraordinary process” (subsequently declared null by Kennedy) followed new “evidence presented by some diocesan bishops of Argentina, as well as by several members of the faithful in the months of June and July 2024, on July 5, 2024.”
Iannone’s legal rationale seems to suggest that Pope Francis was personally lobbied on Príncipi’s behalf by supporters among the Argentine bishops and then determined to authorize some body — either the Apostolic Signatura or another — to review the appeal for “mercy” on behalf of the twice-convicted child abuser.
However, considering that the signatura’s proper law excludes the court from issuing a decision on its own authority, and limits it to making an advisory recommendation to the pope himself, Iannone’s rationale also suggests that Francis would have had to personally order Príncipi’s reinstatement and delegate his chief of staff, Archbishop Peña Parra, to communicate it.
While that possibility would fall within the Church’s canonical framework, as an extraordinary exercise of supreme papal governing authority, it would raise new questions about Archbishop Kennedy’s subsequent move to void the process and reaffirm Príncipi’s laicization.
If the “extraordinary process” to reinstate the convicted abuser was convened legally via a direct appeal to and exercise of papal clemency in the case, the DDF secretary would have no canonical power to declare it null — which Kennedy did earlier this month on October 7.
Iannone’s brief explanation of the exclusive authority of the DDF in abuse cases versus the potential roles of the Secretariat of State and Apostolic Signatura appears to suggest only two possibilities when applied to the Príncipi case:
Either the attempt to reinstate the laicized priest was made outside of the canonical rule of law and without papal involvement — which is suggested by Archbishop Kennedy’s order earlier this month declaring the move legally null. In this case, however, the Vatican still faces questions about who was responsible for the apparently extralegal attempt to reinstate a convicted child abuser.
Or appeals for “mercy” on Príncipi’s behalf were heard and delegated by the sole legal authority able to act above the DDF’s competence — the pope personally. In which case, Archbishop Kennedy’s intervention on October 7 would appear to be either a successful bid to overrule the pope himself, or to persuade the pope to vacate his own act of clemency after it had been issued.
In either case, Archbishop Iannone’s comments to official media now seem to have placed Pope Francis himself at the center of the Príncipi affair.
