What happens when a ruling from Rome reaches a diocesan
chancery declaring that its suspension of a priest was “invalid,” and
chancery officials choose not to tell its clergy and faithful what Rome
has decided?In Sweden’s only Catholic diocese,
officials have acknowledged in writing that they do not intend to
announce that the Vatican’s Dicastery for Clergy found the 2024
suspension of Father Tobias Unnerstål,
a Gothenburg parish priest, “invalid” — until a further, potentially
lengthy canonical process has been resolved.
Nor does the diocese
intend, until then, to inform its clergy and faithful that the priest,
according to the Vatican’s decree, may administer certain sacraments and
publicly celebrate Mass with the local Ordinary, Cardinal Anders
Arborelius.
New
evidence has emerged showing that, to date, the diocese has also failed
to comply with the decree’s requirement that it provide for the
priest’s livelihood.
A June 2026 investigative report titled “Something Is Rotten in the Church in Sweden”
first detailed his case. He was interrogated by the Vicar General, Fr.
Pascal-René Lung, in April 2021 over a single complaint — not sexual in
nature — filed by Joseph Rizk, then a seminarian who is now a priest of
the diocese. Fr. Unnerstål was never shown the complaint.
A former
parish assistant later wrote that she had spent years shaping Rizk’s
view of the relationship and that she also felt she had to stop a
project Fr. Unnerstål was establishing. He was removed without warning
as parish priest of Christ the King Church in January 2022 and suspended
by Cardinal Arborelius in November 2024.
Although
the diocese did not name Fr. Unnerstål in its Nov. 11 suspension
announcement — issued by the Vicar General — or in subsequent postings,
the announcement referred to an unnamed priest who had, since 2022, been
“relieved of his ordinary pastoral duties” — the same language the
diocese had used on Oct. 19, 2022, when it announced that “Fr. Tobias Unnerstål was relieved of his ordinary pastoral duties in the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm on Oct. 1, 2022.”
In
a decree dated May 5, 2026, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Clergy found
the suspension procedurally defective and ruled it “invalid.”
The decree
nevertheless imposed restrictions on Fr. Unnerstål’s ministry for three
years, citing undisclosed “documentation at hand,” including concerns
raised by Cardinal Arborelius about the priest’s “behavior with men.”
To
date, that documentation has not been disclosed to Fr. Unnerstål. The
restrictions thus rest on material he has never seen and therefore
cannot meaningfully challenge — the same fundamental procedural problem
that has marked his case from the outset.
The decree
specified, however, that he may publicly celebrate Mass when
concelebrating with the Cardinal; administer sacraments that do not
require the faculties from the local Ordinary, including baptism,
marriage, and the anointing of the sick; and ordered the diocese to
provide financially for his livelihood.
Nearly four
months after the Dicastery’s ruling, the diocese has communicated none
of this to its clergy and faithful. Its website would lead them to the
opposite conclusion.
A written exchange with the diocese makes clear that this silence is not an oversight. It is deliberate.
On
Thursday, Aug. 27, this journalist sent five written questions to
Kristina Hellner, communications officer for the Diocese of Stockholm,
copying Msgr. Jorge de Salas, Episcopal Vicar for Juridical Affairs, and
Fr. Lung, the Vicar General. Both officials have played roles in Fr.
Unnerstål’s case.
As reported in June, Fr. Lung has been a central
figure from the outset: he interrogated Fr. Unnerstål about the
allegations in 2021, in the Cardinal’s absence, without showing him the
complaint, participated in key meetings with the Cardinal concerning his
status, and issued the announcement of his suspension.
The June
reporting also established that Msgr. de Salas had already confirmed by
phone the substance of the Dicastery’s ruling. Fr. Unnerstål was “not
suspended, strictly,” Msgr. de Salas said, “but he’s not in good
standing.”Given their roles in the case and the canonical issues
involved, both officials would ordinarily be among those consulted on
the diocese’s response.
The first two questions were
narrow: Why had the diocese not informed its clergy and faithful that
the Dicastery had ruled the suspension invalid? And why had it not
informed them that Fr. Unnerstål may administer certain sacraments?
Hellner
replied by the requested deadline. The diocese, she said, had “waited
until the decree had become final and legally effective.” She confirmed
that Fr. Unnerstål had filed a recourse with the Apostolic Signatura,
adding that the diocese “believe[s] it’s appropriate to respect the
canonical process and allow the competent ecclesiastical authorities to
complete their consideration of the matter.”
Once that process
concluded, she said, “we will communicate the outcome accordingly.” A
source close to the Apostolic Signatura confirmed that the process could
take up to two years.
Pressed on whether the diocese
considered the Dicastery’s decree to have legal force in the meantime,
Hellner clarified: “We didn’t want to publish the decree before we were
certain that there would not be an appeal (= final and legally
effective).”
This journalist replied that the
question was not why the diocese had failed to publish the decree, but
why it had failed to communicate two specific facts: that Fr.
Unnerstål’s suspension had been ruled invalid and that he may administer
certain sacraments. It was pointed out that neither of these points was
under appeal.
The decree itself, moreover, states
that it took effect on the date of its issuance — May 5, 2026. “Does the
Cardinal not have a responsibility to communicate this information to
the clergy and faithful, both for their sake and in justice to the
priest in question?” this journalist asked. To withhold it, this
journalist continued, was effectively to continue treating Fr. Unnerstål
as a suspended priest.
Hellner
responded: “Our position is that we considered it more appropriate to
wait until the appeal period had expired before communicating the decree
or any selected part of it.”
Because the diocese had “not seen the
appeal submitted to the Apostolic Signatura,” she added, it did “not
know which parts of the decree are or are not the subject of the
appeal.” It therefore did “not consider it appropriate to make separate
statements regarding individual aspects of the decree while the
canonical process is ongoing.”
Hellner subsequently
confirmed that the diocese itself had filed no appeal or recourse
against the decree, “either to the Apostolic Signatura or to the
Dicastery for the Clergy.” Fr. Unnerstål is therefore the only party to
have filed recourse against the decree.
This
journalist also asked about the Dicastery’s order that the diocese
provide Fr. Unnerstål with an adequate livelihood, at a level equivalent
to that of a retired priest, and noted that, to date, he appeared to
have received nothing. Hellner declined to address the substance of the
question: “Our policy is not to comment on financial support to
individual priests.”
The
diocese’s position raises a significant question. Recourse to the
Apostolic Signatura, the Catholic Church’s highest court, exists to
challenge decisions or provisions a party considers unfavorable. It
would be a striking proposition to suggest that Fr. Unnerstål is
contesting the findings that his suspension was invalid, that he may
administer certain sacraments, or that the diocese must provide for his
livelihood.
The diocese’s professed uncertainty about “which parts” of
the decree Fr. Unnerstål is contesting therefore rests on the
possibility that he is challenging the very provisions that favor him.
Moreover,
new evidence calls the diocese’s professed uncertainty into question.
According to a Sept. 3 letter from Fr. Unnerstål to friends and
benefactors, obtained by this journalist, he met with Cardinal
Arborelius about the decree at the end of May. The Cardinal, he writes,
told him he would pray for guidance and get back to him — but never did.
On July 31, Fr. Unnerstål informed the Cardinal directly that he had
filed recourse with the Apostolic Signatura and took the opportunity to
“draw his attention” to the diocese’s non-compliance: no financial
support had been provided, and the diocese had communicated neither that
his suspension had been ruled invalid nor that he might administer
certain sacraments — baptism, marriage, and the anointing of the sick —
and concelebrate Mass publicly with the Cardinal.
Fr. Unnerstål writes:
“When
no response or reaction came from the Cardinal, I was compelled to
bring the matter to the attention of the Holy See. This was done by
means of a ‘Non-Compliance with Decree Prot. N. 2026 0530,’ which was
sent on 26 August by email, with a copy to the Cardinal and the Nuncio. I
later also sent the original to Rome. The [Dicastery for] Clergy has
confirmed that they received it on 28 August.”
In the letter, he also notes that he has not heard anything from the diocese since July 2025.
The
Cardinal had therefore been informed by the priest himself of “which
parts” were and were not part of the appeal — a month before this
journalist’s Aug. 27-30 email exchange with Hellner and two days before Rome formally logged his complaint of non-compliance.
On
Sept. 1, this journalist put the exchange with the diocese to Fr.
Gerald Murray, a canon lawyer and priest of the Archdiocese of New York.
Asked whether, in his view, the diocese is obliged to communicate to
its clergy and faithful that Fr. Unnerstål’s suspension is ruled
invalid, and that he may administer certain sacraments, Fr. Murray noted
that “while the diocese did not identify Fr. Tobias Unnerstål as the
priest who was suspended when it publicized the suspension, it became
common public knowledge” that he was in fact that priest.
Citing
Canon 220 of the Code of Canon Law, which states: “No one is permitted
to harm illegitimately the good reputation which a person possesses nor
to injure the right of any person to protect his or her own privacy,”
Fr. Murray argued that since Fr. Unnerstål is widely known to have
incurred suspension, “it is a matter of justice” for the Diocese of
Stockholm to make known that he is no longer under suspension, “thus
ensuring that his good reputation is not harmed from this point on by
any further even indirect wrongful identification of him by the diocese
as a suspended priest.”
Asked whether the diocese is
also obliged, from the date the decree took effect, to provide
financially for Fr. Unnerstål’s adequate livelihood, Fr. Murray said
plainly: “I would argue that the obligation to provide financially for
Fr. Unnerstål is retroactive to the date of his suspension, if he was in
fact not financially supported from that date onward.”
In the initial email to the diocese, this journalist included a direct link to the report, “Something Is Rotten in the Church in Sweden,”
and asked whether the diocese wished to comment on its contents.
Across
the full exchange, the diocese did not contest the report: it did not
deny a single claim, correct a single detail, or offer any competing
account.
The final question concerned a matter raised in that report, namely the conduct and standing of Fr.
Pär-Anders Feltenheim, the priest Cardinal Arborelius appointed to
succeed Fr. Unnerstål at Christ the King in 2022.
As reported in June,
complaints about Fr. Feltenheim’s conduct toward young people had
accumulated over the course of his career, from his years as a political
activist before ordination through successive parish assignments and
his assignment to the Stockholm
Cathedral.
A formal investigation in 2013–14, led by Msgr. Jorge de
Salas, resulted in his transfer to Stockholm Cathedral and an express
prohibition on working with children and young people.
Despite that
prohibition, he subsequently became responsible for the Cathedral’s
altar-server group, which included boys in their early teens.
In
the same telephone conversation in which Msgr. de Salas confirmed to
this journalist the substance of the Dicastery’s ruling on Fr.
Unnerstål, saying he was “not suspended, strictly” but remained subject
to restrictions, he also described Fr. Feltenheim as “a priest in good
standing.”
Following that telephone conversation,
sources within the diocese told this journalist that Fr. Feltenheim had
been removed from his duties as parish priest of Christ the King over
internet activity the diocese judged not criminal, but incompatible with
his continuing in parish ministry.
This was reported in the June 26
article.
Asked about Fr. Feltenheim’s status again in
August, Hellner answered simply that she had “no further information
other than that he is in good standing.”
As
reported in June, the Stockholm Chancery’s handling of the cases of
these two priests, as well as others, has led Swedish Catholics to call
on Rome to investigate what they describe as corruption at the heart of
the diocese.
They describe a “power vacuum” opened by a lack of
leadership that has allowed an “axis of power” to emerge in the Chancery
— one, they allege, that has moved against those it perceives as
disloyal or threatening while protecting those whom it favors.
Those
calls come as Cardinal Anders Arborelius, 76, approaches retirement and
the diocese awaits the appointment of his successor, which some sources
expect as early as the end of this month. Much will depend on who
succeeds him.
The two-part report Swedish Catholics published online
this year identified Fr. Lung, the vicar general, as part of the “axis
of power” its authors described — an identification others have since
confirmed to this journalist privately.
He could be appointed permanent
successor or serve as apostolic administrator until a new bishop is
named. Sources argue that either arrangement could perpetuate the
pattern.
A third article will examine two further
cases within the diocese, and the climate of fear this pattern of
governance has left in its wake, particularly among the clergy.
What happens when a decision from Rome reaches a diocesan chancery and rules that its suspension of
a priest was “invalid,” and chancery officials choose not to tell their
clergy and faithful what Rome has decided?
In the Diocese of Stockholm,
nearly four months later, the clergy and faithful have yet to be told.
Whether that changes — and when — remains to be seen.
