Canonical-legal responsibility of ecclesiastical superiors in relation to the sexual offences of their subordinates

Fr. Piotr Majer’s chapter examines the notion of responsibility of ecclesiastical superiors, particularly diocesan bishops and major religious superiors, in the context of sexual offences committed by clerics under their authority. The author distinguishes between prospective responsibility, understood as the assumption of a duty of care and prevention for the future, and retrospective responsibility, which concerns the moral or legal obligation to answer for acts or omissions already committed by oneself or by another person. In canon law this is primarily a matter of indirect responsibility, based on a specific legal relationship between superior and subordinate, characterised by a duty of supervision and care, and grounded in the classical legal rule of Boniface VIII “Qui sentit onus sentire debet commodum et contra” and the Roman maxim “cuius commoda, eius incommoda,” according to which benefits and burdens should go together. The chapter builds on the author’s previous work on the canonical responsibility of bishops for the acts of their clergy, addressing both the moral and juridical dimensions of such responsibility with regard to sexual offences against minors.