Legal history of the Catholic Church
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The Catholic Church utilizes the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the
Latin canon law
Jus antiquum
The most ancient collections of canonical legislation are certain very early Apostolic documents, known as the
It was in the East, after Constantine I's
In the Western Church one collection of canons, the Collectio Dionysiana, exercised an influence far beyond the limits of the country in which it was composed. This collection was the work of
Besides the Dionysiana, Italy also produced two 5th-century Latin translations of the Greek synods known as the Corpus canonum Africano-Romanum and Collectio prisca, both of which are now lost though large portions of them survive in two very large Italian collections known as the
Iberia (i.e. Spain) possessed the Capitula Martini, compiled about 572 by Martin, Bishop of Braga (in Portugal), and the immense and influential Collectio Hispana dating from about 633, attributed in the 9th century to
Jus Novum
The period of canonical history known as the Jus Novum ("new law") or middle period covers the time from Gratian to the Council of Trent (mid-12th century–16th century).[2]
The various conciliar canons and papal decrees were gathered together into collections, both unofficial and official. In the year 1000, there was no book that had attempted to summarized the whole body of canon law, to systematize it in whole or in part.[8] There were, however, many collections of the decrees of councils and great bishops. These collections usually only had regional force and were usually organized chronologically by type of document (e.g. letters of popes, canons of councils, etc.), or occasionally by general topic.[8] Before the late 11th century, canon law was highly decentralized, depending on many different codifications and sources, whether of local councils, ecumenical councils, local bishops, or of the Bishops of Rome.[8]
The first truly systematic collection was assembled by the
Johannes Gratian was a monk who taught theology at a monastery in
The combination of logical, moral, and political elements contributed to a systematization that was quite different from a merely doctrinal or dogmatic analysis of legal rules, however complex and however coherent. The canon law as a system was more than rules; it was a process, a dialectical process of adapting rules to new situations. This was inevitable if only because of the limits imposed upon its jurisdiction, and the consequent competition which it faced from the secular legal systems that coexisted with it.[15]
In the thirteenth century, the Roman Church began to collect and organize its canon law, which after a millennium of development had become a complex and difficult system of interpretation and cross-referencing. The official collections were the Liber Extra (1234) of Pope
Jus Novissimum
After the
Jus Codicis
Pio-Benedictine law
At the
Johanno-Pauline law
In 1959,
Eastern canon law
Distinct from the canonical tradition of the
In the early twentieth century, when Eastern Churches began to come back to full communion with the
Since the early twentieth century,
Timeline
Jus antiquum
- From the apostolic period, the Catholic church used different collections of law but development of a single collection which could be used in all courts did not develop until the Middle Ages.
- 1059 – Cardinals have the right of electing the pope.[19]
Jus novum
- The books of the Corpus Juris Canonici were derived from decretalswritten from 1200 to 1500.
- 1210 – Innocent III promulgates the Compilatio tertia (compiled by Petrus Beneventanus)[20]
- 1225 – Honorius III promulgates the Compilatio quinta (compiled by Tancredus of Bologna[20]
- 1234 – St. Raymond of Peñafort)[20]
- 1298 – Liber Sextus (codified by a commission of legal scholars)[20]
- 1317 – Constitutiones Clementis V, or simply Clementinæ, on 25 October 1317[20]
- 1319 – John XXII promulgated his Extravagantes in August 1319[20]
Jus novissimum
- 1566 – Antonio Agustínof Spain. Pope Pius V did not live to see this project to completion.
- 1582 – Gregory XIII orders republication of the entire Corpus Iuris Canonici as compiled at the time[21] (enforced until 1917)
Jus codicis
- 1904 – Pius X appoints a commission to compile a code of canon law for the Latin Church
- 1917 – Latin: Codex Iuris Canonici)[22]
- 1918 – The 1917 Code comes into legal effect[22]
- 1959, 25 January[23] – John XXIII announces that the 1917 Code would be completely revised[16][17]
- 1963, March 28 – The "Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law" is established[23]
- 1963, November 12 – It is decided to postpone the work of revising the 1917 Code until the end of Vatican II[23]
- 1965, November 20 – Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Code of Canon Law[23]
- 1983 – John Paul II promulgates the 1983 Code of Canon Law,[24] abrogating the Code of 1917[25]
- 1990 – John Paul II promulgates the Latin: Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium)
- 1998 – John Paul II promulgates the
- 2009 –
- 2015 – Mitis et misericors Iesus amending the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches[28]
- 2016, 15 September – Pope Francis issues the motu proprio De Concordia inter codices and amends some canons of the 1983 Code of Canon Law to bring them into harmony with the discipline of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches
- 2017, 3 September – Pope Francis issues the motu proprio Magnum principium, amending one canon (838) to grant episcopal conferences authority over liturgical translations[29]
- 2019 – Pope Francis amends canon law to require leaders of a local religious order to dismiss members of their "religious house" who had been absent for 12 months and were out of contact[30][31][32][33][34]
- 2019, 19 March – Pope Francis issues the motu proprio Communis vita,[35] instituting ipso facto dismissal of religious who are absent for a full year illegitimately from their religious house and replacing canons 694 and 795 in their entirety, with a vacatio legis of 10 April 2019.
See also
References
- ^ Edward N. Peters, CanonLaw.info, accessed Jul-1-2013
- ^ a b c Manual of Canon Law, p. 13, #8
- ^ Paul Fournier and Gabriel Le Bras, Histoire des Collections Canoniques en Occident depuis les Fausses Décrétales jusqu’au Décret de Gratien, 2 vols. (Paris, 1931), vol I, pp. 16–17
- ^ On the controversial date of the Dionysian collections, see E. Wirbelauer, ed., Zwei Päpste in Rom: der Konflikt zwischen Laurentius und Symmachus (498–514), Studien und Texte, Quellen und Forschungen zur antiken Welt 16 (Munich, 1993), p. 121.
- ^ David N. Dumville, "Ireland, Brittany and England: Transmission and Use of the Collectio canonum Hibernensis", in Catherine Laurent and Helen Davis (eds.), Irlande et Bretagne : vingt siècles d'histoire, Actes du colloque de Rennes, 29–31 mars 1993 (Rennes, 1994), pp. 84–85.
- ^ M. Elliot, Canon Law Collections in England ca 600–1066: The Manuscript Evidence, unpubl. PhD dissertation (University of Toronto, 2013).
- ^ Fournier and Le Bras, Histoire des Collections Canoniques en Occident, vol I, pp. 51–62.
- ^ a b c Law and Revolution, p. 116
- ^ Law and Revolution, p. 240
- ^ NYTimes.com, Neighbors and Wives book review of Nov-13-1988, accessed 27 June 2013
- ^ "Catholic Encyclopedia: Johannes Gratian". www.newadvent.org. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
- ^ a b Europe in the High Middle Ages, pp. 127–128
- ^ Europe in the High Middle Ages, p. 116
- ^ Kenneth J. Pennington, CL701, CUA School of Canon Law, "History of Canon Law, Day 1", around 0:25:30, accessed 8-15-2014
- ^ Harold J. Berman, "Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition", p. 254
- ^ a b John XXIII, allocution Questa festiva (25 Jan. 1959), AAS 51 (1959) pp. 68–69
- ^ a b CanonLaw.info, "Legislative History of the 1983 Code of Canon Law"; accessed June-7-2013
- ^ Pope John Paul II (1983-01-25). "Apostolic Constitution Sacrae Disciplinae Leges". Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Retrieved 2007-04-08.
- ^ Berman, Law and Revolution, p. 605
- ^ a b c d e f Ken Pennington, Codification 1225 to 1900 Archived 2015-12-29 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 7 December 2015
- ^ Edward N. Peters, "1917 Code of Canon Law" (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001), p. 6 (Pietro Gasparri's Preface to 1917 CIC)
- ^ a b Benedict XV, Ap. Const. Providentissima Mater Ecclesia of 27 May 1917
- ^ a b c d Coriden, The Code of Canon Law, p. 948
- Sacrae Disciplinae Leges
- ^ 1983 Code, canon 6 §1, 1°
- ^ John Paul II, Ad Tuendam Fidem, accessed 16 July 2015
- ^ Benedict XVI, Omnium in Mentem, accessed 16 July 2015.
- ^ Pope Francis reforms Church law in marital nullity trials, Vatican Radio, accessed 8 September 2015
- ^ Francis (9 September 2017), Magnum Principium (Motu Proprio), Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, retrieved 11 March 2018
- ^ Null (2019-03-26). "Pope Issues Motu Proprio 'Communis Vita' to Limit Priestly Absence from Communities". ZENIT – English. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
- ^ "Papa Francesco: Motu proprio "Communis vita", il religioso "illegittimamente assente e irreperibile" per un anno è dismesso dall'ordine | AgenSIR". 26 March 2019.
- ^ Brockhaus, Hannah. "Pope Francis changes canon law for religious who desert the community". Catholic News Agency. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
- ^ https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2019/03/26/pope-amends-canon-law-on-religious-who-abandon-their-community/[bare URL]
- ^ "Pope amends canon law on religious who abandon their community". TheCatholicSpirit.com. 2019-03-26. Retrieved 2020-07-06.
- ^ Pope Francis: New rules for religious life, VaticanNews.va, accessed 26 March 2019.
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-674-51776-8
- James A. Brundage. Medieval Canon Law. London: Routledge, 1995.
- James A. Brundage. The Medieval Origins of the Legal Profession: Canonists, Civilians, and Courts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.
- James A. Coriden, Thomas J. Green, & Donald E. Heintschel, eds. The Code of Canon Law: A Text and Commentary. New York: Paulist Press, 1985. Commissioned by the Canon Law Society of America.
- John J. Coughlin. Canon Law: A Comparative Study with Anglo-American Legal Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- Fernando Della Rocca. Manual of Canon Law. Trans. by Anselm Thatcher. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1959.
- R. H. Helmholz. The Spirit of Classical Canon Law. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1996.
- Wilfried Hartmann & Kenneth Pennington, eds. The History of Canon Law in the Classical Period, 1140–1234: From Gratian to the Decretals of Pope Gregory IX. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2008.
- Wilfried Hartmann & Kenneth Pennington, eds. The History of Courts and Procedure in Medieval Canon Law. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016.
- Kriston R. Rennie. Medieval Canon Law, new edn. Leeds, England: Arc Humanities Press, 2018.
- C. Van de Wiel. History of Canon Law. Peeters Publishers, 1990.
- John Witte Jr. & Frank S. Alexander, eds. Christianity and Law: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Francis J. Schaefer (1913). "Influence of the Church on Civil Law". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.). Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.