What Are the Laws of the Catholic Church

The Role of the Law in the Church Despite its spiritual nature, the Church on earth is composed of imperfect human beings. Therefore, laws, as in civil society, are necessary to protect the rights of the People of God and also to prescribe their responsibility as members of the Christian community. It is important not to confuse canon law and moral law from the beginning. Canon law governs the external relations of individuals in the Christian community. By itself, it does not bind under the threat of sin, although sin may very well be implied when canon law is violated. The individual`s direct relationship with God is governed by a higher law that includes moral standards. Transgression of the moral law involves sin. Canon law requires that its laws be effectively respected, but with the following understanding: if the spiritual needs of the individual or group are such that strict observance of the law would prove counterproductive, or if there is doubt about how the law should be applied to a particular situation, someone may waive the obligations of the law. who has the power [to remove them]. The Church is a multifaceted society in all its aspects. Even its laws are ordained to a supernatural end. If we keep this in mind, we can see the canons not as a set of limiting rules, but as a guide to Christian life in a particular community, the Catholic Church.

— Thomas P. Doyle OP. Rights and Duties — Catholic Guide to the New Code of Canon Law (Pueblo, 1983). Benedict XV, in his bull of proclamation, refers to the motu proprio Arduum sane, published by Pius X on March 17, 1904 and which leads to the codex of 1917. [22] In this memorable statement, the late Pope set out the reasons that led him, as Supreme Pastor of souls who care for all the Churches, to provide for a new codification of ecclesiastical laws, with the aim of “compiling with order and clarity all the laws of the Church hitherto promulgated. to remove all those that would be recognized as abolished or obsolete, to adapt the others to the needs of the time, and to issue new ones according to current needs. [22] Canon law is a code of ecclesiastical laws that governs the Catholic Church. In the Latin or Western Church, the current code is the 1983 Code of Canon Law, a revision of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. A separate but parallel code of the canons of the Eastern Churches, published in 1990, governs the Eastern Catholic Churches. This document was the first comprehensive code of canon law that regulated all Eastern Catholic Churches. Eastern Catholic canon law is the law of the 23 particular Catholic Churches sui iuris of the Eastern Catholic tradition.

Eastern canon law includes both the common tradition of all the Eastern Catholic Churches, which is now contained mainly in the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, and the special law proper to each particular Eastern Catholic Church sui iuris. From the canons of the various councils and the writings of the Fathers of the Eastern Church, Eastern canon law developed in accordance with Byzantine Roman laws, which led to the compilation of the Nomocanons. Eastern canon law differs from Latin canon law, which developed in the remnants of the Western Roman Empire under the direct influence of the Roman Pope along his own line and is now codified mainly in the 1983 Code of Canon Law. Positive ecclesiastical laws, which are based directly or indirectly on immutable divine laws or natural laws, derive their formal authority in the case of universal laws from promulgation by the supreme legislator – the supreme pope, who has all legislative, executive and judicial power in his person,[6] or by the college of bishops, acting in communion with the Pope; On the other hand, some laws derive their formal authority from enactment by a legislature subordinate to the supreme legislature, whether it is an ordinary legislature or a delegated legislature. The real subject of the canons is not only doctrinal or moral in nature, but encompasses everything of the human condition. The canon law of the Catholic Church has all the ordinary elements of a mature legal system: laws, courts, lawyers, judges. [7] The canon law of the Catholic Church is articulated in the Code of Law for the Latin Church[8] as well as in a Code for the Eastern Catholic Churches. [8] This canon law has principles of legal interpretation[9] and coercive sanctions. [10] In most secular jurisdictions, it has no binding civil force.