Pope Leo faces growing pressure to strip sex offender Christopher Saunders of his title.
Dr. Christopher Longhurst KSO
Catholic Bishop Christopher Saunders is in prison. The question now is what the Pope does about the title he still carries.
The former Bishop of Broome has been sentenced to six years and six months for sexually abusing two young Aboriginal men. A Western Australian jury convicted him of 13 offences, including sexual penetration without consent and 12 counts of indecent assault. He will be eligible for parole in February 2031.
Yet Saunders remains, technically, a bishop. The Pope has not removed him from the clerical state, and he is still publicly identified as Bishop Emeritus of Broome. For the survivors, seeing a convicted sex offender still described as a bishop must be insulting. For all members of the Catholic Church it must be deeply shameful.
Titles are not just words. They confer authority, status and credibility, and Saunders used all three. He exercised extraordinary power over a remote diocese where Indigenous people made up a substantial share of Catholics. The court heard that he used church-owned properties and supplied alcohol to young men he then abused.
The Church knew something was wrong. The Vatican investigated him under Vos estis lux mundi, its framework for allegations against bishops, before Australian police laid charges. A prison sentence must not start another ecclesiastical waiting game.
The Pope has the means to remove Saunders’ title. Canon law distinguishes between the indelibility of ordination and the loss of the clerical state. Canon 290 allows a cleric to be dismissed from the clerical state as a penalty, and canon 292 then deprives him of the rights of that state, along with every ecclesiastical office, function and delegated authority. Pope Francis used this power against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2019. Saunders’ ordination cannot be undone, but his public standing can be.
Further, Canon 1395 provides penalties, including possible dismissal from the clerical state for clerics who commit sexual offences through force, threats or abuse of authority. Canon 1398 likewise provides for deprivation of office and, where warranted, dismissal from the clerical state in cases involving sexual offences against persons.
So what is Pope Leo waiting for?
Surely a responsible Pope would begin the canonical process immediately. He would strip Saunders of every office, title and privilege, and forbid him from presenting himself as a bishop or exercising any ministry. He would also make clear that no sanctuary, platform or pastoral role awaits Saunders when the prison gates open. For a bishop convicted of sexual offending, release from prison must never mean a return to normality.
A Pope cannot tell survivors or his followers that safeguarding, accountability and transparency are priorities while allowing a convicted sex offender to keep the dignity of episcopal office. If Saunders walks out of prison still called “Bishop,” the shame will not be his alone. It will belong to the Pope who allowed it.
Survivors need more than an apology followed by institutional amnesia. Catholics need more than carefully worded statements about safeguarding and accountability. They need a Church whose actions match its words.
A Church that preaches the God-given dignity of every human being cannot go on dignifying a man convicted of destroying it in others.
