The ecclesiastical abstention doctrine traces its roots to Supreme Court precedent holding that the First Amendment secures a sphere of institutional autonomy for religious organizations. Under this jurisprudence, churches enjoy freedom from secular intrusion in matters central to their identity, including questions of faith, doctrine, and internal governance. Historically, courts applied the doctrine primarily in disputes involving church property and the appointment or removal of clergy. More recently, however, the Supreme Court has clarified that the doctrine extends equally to disagreements concerning internal church administration. (See, e.g., Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese for U.S. of Am. & Canada v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 710 (1976)). In essence, when resolving a dispute would require a civil court to engage in substantial interpretation of religious law or ecclesiastical structure, the court must defer to the determinations of the church’s highest adjudicatory body and treat those decisions as binding with respect to issues of doctrine and governance.
The doctrine does not shield churches from judicial review of matters that are wholly secular in nature. The central concern is whether adjudication would require courts to interpret religious doctrine or to second-guess ecclesiastical judgments; the doctrine does not require courts to abstain simply because a dispute involves religious actors or has some incidental connection to religious principles. For example, a false accusation that a church member punched another church member in the face would not be protected because such a statement can be evaluated under neutral principles of law, without reference to issues of faith or religious doctrine. One might assume a false accusation of sexual abuse would also fall into this category, but as with any defamation claim, it depends on the context in which the statement was made. If it’s clear that the term “sexual abuse” was being used according to a church’s definition of sexual abuse, the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine will indeed apply and protect the speaker from defamation liability. So held the Virginia Court of Appeals in the case of Catholic Diocese of Richmond v. Oliver Smalls, decided November 5, 2025.
The material facts, according to the opinion, are as follows. The Catholic Diocese of Richmond published a list on its website identifying clergy who had “credible and substantiated allegation[s] of sexual abuse” involving a minor. The list, posted in February 2019, included the name of Oliver Joseph Smalls, Jr., an ordained Catholic priest. Although Smalls had spent decades ministering in Belize and was not then employed by the Richmond Diocese, the Diocese included him because the underlying allegation arose while he was a seminarian of the Diocese of Richmond. The same day the list appeared online, it was published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Smalls sued for defamation, alleging that the accusation was false and that its publication destroyed
In response, the Diocese filed a plea in bar invoking the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, arguing that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. In support, it submitted the Catholic Church’s “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” which sets forth churchwide norms governing the investigation, classification, and public disclosure of allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy. Significantly, the Charter defines “sexual abuse of a minor” in expressly religious terms (including a reference to violations of the “sixth commandment of the Decalogue”) and directs bishops to consult moral theologians where doubt exists.
After an evidentiary hearing, the circuit court denied the plea. It reasoned that ecclesiastical abstention might have applied had the Diocese confined its communication to internal church channels, but that by publishing the list to the general public without clarifying that it was using church-defined terminology, the Diocese had crossed into secular territory. On appeal, the Court of Appeals reversed and dismissed the case.
To be actionable, the court held, the statement must have included a false statement of fact. Evaluating falsity in this situation would require a court to ask whether there was in fact a “credible and substantiated allegation of sexual abuse involving a minor” under the standards used by the Catholic Church. The trial judge would have had to examine the methodology used by the church in placing Smalls’s name on the list of accused offenders. “Sexual abuse of minor” is defined by the church as a violation of “the sixth commandment of the Decalogue committed by a cleric with a minor below the age of eighteen years” or as “the acquisition, possession, or distribution by a cleric of pornographic images of minors under the age of fourteen, for purposes of sexual gratification, by whatever means or using whatever technology.” And “[i]f there is any doubt whether a specific act qualifies as an external, objectively grave violation, the writings of recognized moral theologians should be consulted, and the opinions of recognized experts should be appropriately obtained.”
That inquiry could not be disentangled from ecclesiastical doctrine. The Charter’s definition of sexual abuse explicitly invokes religious concepts, including violations of the Sixth Commandment, and directs bishops to consult moral theologians in close cases. A civil court could not evaluate whether the bishop who authored the list properly applied those standards without interpreting religious precepts and second-guessing internal church determinations. As the court put it, “[c]ivil courts cannot adjudicate defamation claims when the truth of the statements in question turns on ecclesiastical law” (citing Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia v. Marshall, 81 Va. App. 255, 275 (2024)).
The court rejected Smalls’s argument that the church’s definition of sexual abuse was functionally identical to secular criminal definitions. Even if the concepts overlapped, the court held, the operative question was which definition the Diocese actually applied in making and publishing its determination. Because that definition was ecclesiastical in nature, neutral principles could not be used.
The Court of Appeals also rejected the circuit court’s reasoning that public dissemination altered the analysis. The doctrine does not turn on audience or publicity, but on substance. Whether a religious determination is communicated internally or to the public, courts must ask whether adjudicating the resulting claim would require resolving ecclesiastical matters. Because Smalls’s defamation claim could not be resolved without entangling the court in religious doctrine and church governance, the Court of Appeals held that the circuit court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the dispute.