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Paper short abstract

Based on ethnographic research in Rome, I contend that diversification in the field of canon law has largely stabilized conservative Catholic doctrine. By juxtaposing conservative Global South canon lawyers with decolonizing anthropology, I highlight biases in contemporary decolonial discourse.

Paper long abstract

As the oldest continuously operating global bureaucracy, the Catholic Church has been held together by canon law. Catholicism, and canon law in particular, have been understood as vehicles of colonialism, whether through the entanglement of Christianization and colonization or through modeling political sovereignty on divine supremacy. Recent scholarship has called for closer scrutiny of the Eurocentric orientation of so-called global canon law and has begun to ask what it might mean to decolonize it.

Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in central institutions of the Holy See in Rome among canon lawyers, this paper argues that institutional diversification does not necessarily result in epistemic change. Today, more than sixty percent of canon law students in Rome come from the Global South. While this diversification might be expected to challenge or reshape conservative Catholic doctrine, I contend that internationalization has, in practice, largely reproduced and stabilized existing doctrinal positions.

This empirical observation is placed in dialogue with contemporary debates on decolonization in anthropology. In recent years, decolonization has frequently been framed as the inclusion of scholars, perspectives, and epistemologies from the Global South within curricula, bibliographies, institutional structures, and theoretical foundations to overcome colonial legacies and path dependencies. Such inclusion, however, tends to be selective. Perspectives that gain visibility often resonate with established anthropological orientations, such as critiques of Cartesian dualism or engagements with posthumanist thought. By juxtaposing conservative canon lawyers from the Global South with prevailing inclusionary practices in decolonizing anthropology, this paper highlights potential biases within contemporary decolonial discourse.