One of the proposals made at last month’s meeting of U.S. Catholic bishops for investigating future allegations of misconduct by prelates appears likely to receive Vatican approval, according to several eminent canon lawyers and theologians. Celebration, NCR’s sister publication, will publish a new reflection each day during Advent.

The suggestion to empower the nation’s metropolitan archbishops to examine accusations made against bishops in their regions of the country corresponds both with the way the church handled such issues in earlier centuries and the current Code of Canon Law, they say.

Nicholas Cafardi, a respected civil and canon lawyer, noted that the current version of the code already says the Vatican can give archbishops “special functions and power” in their regions “where circumstances demand it.” “This function could be to receive and investigate accusations of sexual impropriety … and then to report to the Holy See on the results,” said Cafardi, who has advised bishops and dioceses on canonical issues for decades.

Richard Gaillardetz, a theologian who has written several books on the practice of authority in Catholicism, said simply: “It’s just good ecclesiology.” “It wouldn’t be too hard to envision the Holy See granting metropolitans special functions, and I could imagine that being done,” he said.

In the Catholic Church, metropolitan archbishops are those who are tasked with both leading an archdiocese and presiding over the bishops in their wider ecclesiastical province. While their role in their provinces has been largely honorific in recent centuries, it was much more expanded in the earlier church.

“It would be an interesting move,” Jesuit Fr Steven Schoenig, a historian who has focused his research on the role of archbishops in the Middle Ages, said of the proposal. “It would kind of restore things to an earlier stage in the church’s history.”

The possibility of empowering arch-bishops to investigate allegations made in their provinces was raised at the annual meeting of the bishops’ conference in November, when the prelates were considering a number of proposals to respond to this year’s spate of revelations of clergy sexual abuse.