Meredith Edelman, Monash University
Catholic Dioceses, Legal Systems, and Corporate Accountability was published by Bloomsbury in November 2025.
Why did I write this book?
Violence is a core form of corporate wrongdoing, yet corporations are rarely held meaningfully accountable for it. Catholic dioceses’ responsibility for child sexual abuse constitutes a form of corporate violence. Unlike many other instances of such wrongdoing, however, sustained advocacy by Survivors and high levels of public scrutiny have resulted in dioceses being subject to a wide range of legal processes across multiple jurisdictions. These include civil and criminal litigation, canon law, government inquiries and royal commissions, bankruptcy proceedings, and redress schemes.
This multiplicity of fora presents a unique opportunity to analyse how legal systems function—or fail to function—in holding corporations accountable for serious wrongdoing. I wrote this book to challenge the assumption that existing legal systems are even reasonably fit for that purpose. Rather than calling for incremental reforms to doctrine or procedure, the book argues for changes to the purposes, theories, and structures of legal systems.
By comparing multiple legal systems tasked with addressing the same underlying wrongdoing by the same type of corporate actor, the book invites critical reflection on how legal systems interact with corporations. Although Catholic dioceses are the focus of the cases examined, the book’s concern is legal processes through which corporate wrongdoing is addressed. Examining how different systems respond to the same form of harm provides a novel approach to assessing the capacity of legal systems to address corporate violence.
Legal scholars and socio‑legal researchers have long debated whether outcomes are shaped primarily by legal doctrine or by factors such as wealth, access to legal services, identity, and political influence. Socio-legal scholars are very familiar with scholarship describing a ‘gap’ between ‘law on the books’ and ‘law in action,’ with legal proceedings failing to provide outcomes reflecting the expressed principles and values understood to be embedded in legal doctrine. Having experience providing legal services in a wide range of contexts, I believe there are more aspects to a legal system than can be explained with a ‘law on the books’ and ‘law in action’ dichotomy.
My professional background in Chapter 11 bankruptcy practice profoundly shaped my perspective. Chapter 11 is a negotiated, collective process designed to address corporate failure under conditions of scarcity, operating very differently from adversarial civil or criminal processes. It allows for creative solutions that leave most participants whose interests are impacted in as good a position as possible, given circumstances of insolvency. I was inspired to compare chapter 11 to other legal systems after reading John Braithwaite’s work on restorative justice and responsive regulation. His description of flexible processes and active participation of multiple impacted parties resonated with my experience in chapter 11 practice.
What is the book about, and what further work is needed in this field?
The book focuses on two dioceses: Ballarat, in Victoria, Australia, and Gallup, in Arizona and New Mexico, in the United States. Both are subject to canon law and have faced extensive allegations of clerical child sexual abuse. Tort claims have been brought in Victoria, Arizona, New Mexico, and the Navajo Nation. Gallup filed for bankruptcy in 2013, the same year the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was established.
The Royal Commission’s high-profile hearings, including testimony from then-Cardinal George Pell about events in Ballarat, investigated histories of abuse dating back decades, forcing disclosure of evidence beyond the power of any other legal system, and resulted in the implementation of a redress scheme, even as the commission itself did not have the power to establish the scheme itself, weakening its capacity to provide real redress.
Chapter 11 cases involving Catholic dioceses, such as Gallup, are examples of “mass tort bankruptcies,” in which unresolved tort claims comprise the debtor’s primary liabilities. The bankruptcy process must therefore provide an alternative mechanism for resolving those claims, typically through a settlement trust administered by a trustee who assesses claims according to agreed criteria.
For Survivors who had already brought claims, bankruptcy imposed significant costs: proceedings were stayed, claims could not be proven in court, and monetary recoveries were likely lower than what civil litigation might have produced. At the same time, Chapter 11 lowered barriers for Survivors who had not previously brought claims. Filing a proof of claim was simpler, less public, and less adversarial than filing a lawsuit, resulting in broader participation. Importantly, Survivors acting collectively were also able to negotiate for non‑monetary outcomes rarely available in civil litigation, including public and private apologies, ongoing acknowledgements of abuse in diocesan communications, commitments to Survivor support, and the disclosure of records.
The book’s central finding is that both Chapter 11 and the Royal Commission display forms of quasi‑responsiveness. Each possesses strengths the other lacks: Chapter 11 enables negotiated, participatory remedies but has limited investigative power, while royal commissions exercise extensive investigative authority without the ability to deliver binding reparations. Drawing on their complementary characteristics, the book develops a theoretical foundation for a new legal process: corporate moral insolvency.
Corporate moral insolvency would combine the broad investigatory power of a royal commission with the multi-party negotiated settlement process of chapter 11. A corporate moral insolvency process, designed around corporate ontology, and drawing on the knowledge and preferences of stakeholders, would have the power to distribute equity in corporate wrongdoers to victims, creditors, or employees, and could even liquidate unredeemable corporations.