The word defrock has appeared in five New York Times articles in the past year, including on Feb. 1 in "Cardinal in Los Angeles Is Removed From Duties" by Jennifer Medina and Laurie Goodstein:

• Archbishop Gomez's move to discipline his predecessor and to accept the resignation of Bishop Curry, was unexpected and unusual. It has not been the custom of bishops to use disciplinary measures against one another - or even to issue any public criticism.
• Instead, as part of the sweeping package of policies for dealing with sexual abuse that American bishops passed at the height of the abuse scandal in 2002, the bishops agreed that they would employ what they call "fraternal correction" with one another when the situation requires. Only the pope can decide to remove a bishop from the leadership of his diocese. And only the pope can defrock a priest or a bishop.