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Canon Law and Theology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2012

Robert Ombres OP
Robert Ombres OP
Affiliation:
Fellow, Blackfriars Hall, Oxford Assistant Professor, Canon Law Faculty, Pontifical University of St Thomas, Rome
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Abstract

The relation of religious law to theology is basic to any faith community. In this article, chiefly in terms of Roman Catholicism, but it is hoped of wider application especially within Christianity, the relation of canon law to theology is examined through papal allocutions to the judges and other members of the Church court known as the Roman Rota. There are significant British links to the Rota before and after the Reformation. The 2009 allocution by Benedict XVI is the focus for considering the theological and normative authority of such allocutions. Pius XII has been one of the few canonists to become Pope in modern times, and the co-ordinated set of allocutions from 1945 to 1949 given by him to the Rota is therefore taken as the focus for reflecting on the nature and functions of canon law today. This involves the consideration of both theology and law, including secular law. The ecclesiological character of canon law will emerge as central.

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Articles
Information
Ecclesiastical Law Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 2 , May 2012 , pp. 164 - 194
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2012

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References

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24 Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, Dignitas Connubii: instruction to be observed by diocesan and interdiocesan tribunals in handling causes of the nullity of marriage (Vatican City, 2005). This edition has the official Latin text with an English translation.

25 The allocutions can be found in (1987) 79 AAS 1453–1459 and (1988) 80 AAS 1178–1185 respectively.

26 Benedict XVI, Allocution (2009) 101 AAS 125.

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28 Paul VI, Allocution (1966) 58 AAS 152.

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30 John Paul II, Allocution, (1997) 89 AAS 487. The Pope refers to Dei Verbum (10), as he was to do again in 2005.

31 Fattori, Scienze della Psiche, presents a number of positions, and is a good starting point for reflection on the normativity of allocutions.

32 John Paul II, Allocution, (1984) 76 AAS 648.

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34 Pius XII, Allocution, (1949) 41 AAS 604.

35 John Paul II, Allocution, (1980) 72 AAS 176; Pius XII, Allocution, (1942) 34 AAS 338–343; Fattori, Scienze della Psiche, pp 44–46.

36 Pius XII, Allocution, (1949) 41 AAS 604.

37 John Paul II, Allocution, (2005) 97 AAS 165–166.

38 Ibid. The Pope refers to Dei Verbum (10§2), Vatican II's dogmatic constitution on divine revelation.

39 Benedict XVI, Allocution, (2008) 100 AAS 87–88. Benedict XVI considers that allocutions to the Rota, with other interventions of the ecclesiastical magisterium on matrimonial juridical questions, are ‘an immediate guide’ for the workings of all Church courts because they provide authoritative teaching on the essentials of marriage.

40 U Navarrete, ‘Introduzione’ in Erlebach, Le Allocuzioni, pp 7–15.

41 J Llobell, ‘Sulla Valenza Giuridica dei Discorsi del Romano Pontefice al Tribunale Apostolico della Rota Romana’, (2005) 17 Ius Ecclesiae 547–564. Llobell sees a similarity between the normative force of allocutions and the category of ‘instructions’ covered by Canon 34.

42 M Ortiz, ‘Capacità Consensuale ed Essenza del Matrimonio’, (2009) 21 Ius Ecclesiae 484, n 9; for other contributions, see V De Paolis, ‘La Giurisprudenza del Tribunale della Rota Romana e i Tribunali Locali’, (2008) 18 Quaderni dello Studio Rotale 131–165; O Carulli, ‘Le Allocuzioni di Benedetto XVI alla Rota Romana’ in Kowal, J and Llobell, J (eds), Iustitia et Iudicium: studi di diritto matrimoniale e processuale canonico in onore di Antoni Stankiewicz (4 vols, Vatican City, 2010), vol III, pp 1361–1385Google Scholar.

43 Fattori, Scienze della Psiche, pp 389–398, discusses a number of authors, offers a variety of arguments in favour of the normativity of the allocutions, and is particularly attentive to the 2009 allocution. He takes Benedict XVI's words quoted in full in the text above as one of the most convincing arguments in favour of the juridico-normative efficacy of allocutions.

44 Navarrete, ‘Introduzione’, p 8, found in these four allocutions highly elevated thought and style.

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47 For an outline of his canonical and curial career, see Fantappiè, C, Chiesa Romana e Modernità Giuridica (2 vols, Milan, 2008), vol II, p 1240Google Scholar. These volumes are indispensable for understanding how canon law was understood, made and practised from about 1563 to the 1917 Code, especially in Rome. Pacelli had studied and taught canon law at the Apollinare, an influential institution in the Roman canonical world: ibid, vol I, pp 131–132.

48 Pius XII, Summi Pontficatus, (1939) 31 AAS 413–453.

49 Pius XII, Allocution, (1939) n 232; L'Osservatore Romano, 2–3 October 1939, p 1.

50 Noonan, Power to Dissolve, p 382.

51 Cicognani had been teaching this in Rome, at the Apollinare, and his lecture notes were published in Latin as Ius Canonicum (2 vols, Rome, 1925), vol I, pp 50–51 (second, revised edition in English, Canon Law (Westminster, MD, 1934), pp 45–46).

52 Pius XII, Allocution, (1945) 37 AAS 260.

53 There is remarkable agreement between parts of the thought of Pius XII and a basic Church of England report on canon law, dating from 1947. The report's opening chapter is entitled ‘Law in the Church of Christ’, and it states that the right of the Church to make rules and regulations for its own members rests upon the commission given by Our Lord to his Apostles. Reference is made to a number of biblical texts. The report adds that it is also fitting that the Church, being a society that is the Kingdom of Christ and existing for the purpose of bringing humanity to everlasting life – a purpose far transcending that of all earthly societies – should designate as laws the rules and regulations that it makes through the authority bestowed on it by the King of Kings. See the Archbishops' Commission on Canon Law, The Canon Law of the Church of England (London, 1947), pp 3–4.

54 Pius XII, Allocution, (1946) 38 AAS 391. Cicognani, Canon Law (1934 edition), p 46, believed that the science of canon law and the legal sciences in general had a similarity in subject matter, community of principles, methods, terminology and reciprocal influence.

55 Report of the Archbishops' Commission, The Canon Law of the Church of England, p 4, states that the Church has authority to make rules, and that these will, among other things, prescribe what is to be done with those members of the Church, clerical and lay, who deny the Christian faith or transgress the moral law.

56 Pius XII, Allocution, (1946) 38 AAS 392. This Congregation is now called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and its functions are stated in the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus (1988), articles 48–55, with subsequent modifications.

57 Pius XII Allocution, (1947) 39 AAS 494. Again there is a remarkable similarity with what was said in the chapter on law in the Church of Christ by the Report of the Archbishops' Commission, The Canon Law of the Church of England, p 4: the Church exists to help all people to follow out the way of faith and the way of life which Our Lord brought to this world, and in the finding of which each will realise the meaning of true happiness.

58 In his 1944 allocution, Pius XII had said that ecclesiastical juridical activity must recognise that it has no other end than that of the Church; (1944) 36 AAS 290.

59 Pius XII, Allocution (1949) 41 AAS 494.

60 The Pope believed that juridical positivism was largely the responsibility of the nineteenth century, and if its consequences were delayed it was because our culture was still permeated by the Christian past, and because Christians almost everywhere could still have their voices heard in legislative assemblies. It took the coming of the totalitarian state with an anti-Christian stamp, not holding back in the face of a supreme divine law, to unveil the true face of juridical positivism.

61 My translation of the psalm (Psalm 119:86, 160) is of the Latin text as given by the Pope: ‘In aeternum, Domine, est verbum tuum, stabile ut caelum … Verbi tui caput constantia est, et aeternum est omne decretum iustitiae tuae’.

62 Matthew 16:16–20. In an earlier allocution, Pius XII had referred to his explanation in the encyclical Mystici Corporis of how the so-called ‘juridical Church’ is indeed of divine origin but is not the whole Church: Pius XII, Allocution, (1943) 35 AAS 193–248.

63 Pius XII, Allocution (1949) 41 AAS 608. The Report of the Archbishops' Commission, The Canon Law of the Church of England, p 3, moved along similar lines in stating that the jus canonicum possessed by the Church is not an unlimited authority but is circumscribed within definite bounds and determined by the place of the Church in the divine economy.

64 Ottaviani, A, Institutiones Iuris Publici Ecclesiastici (2 vols, Vatican City, 1958–1960)Google Scholar is perhaps the last major statement of the tradition. The first edition was published in 1925.

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68 John Paul II, Allocution, (1990) 82 AAS 872–877.

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73 Pius XII, Allocution, (1947) 39 AAS 497.

74 Pius XII, Allocution, (1944) 36 AAS 289.

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81 There is a vast and sophisticated literature on natural law, an important recent contribution being Finnis, J, Natural Law and Natural Rights (second edition, Oxford, 2011).Google Scholar Finnis makes a point that is vital when discussing such a controversial subject: the fact that natural law can be understood, assented to, applied and reflectively analysed without referring to the question of the existence of God does not of itself entail (i) that no further explanation is required for the fact that there are objective standards of good and bad and principles of reasonableness (right and wrong), or (ii) that no such further explanation is available, or (iii) that the existence and nature of God is not that explanation (p 49).

82 Ibid, p 124.

83 Pius XII, Allocution, (1947) 39 AAS 495.

84 Pius XII, Allocution, (1949) 41 AAS 606.

85 Thus Canon 1163 §2 deals with marriages that are invalid because of an impediment of the natural law or of the divine positive law.

86 John Paul II, Allocution, (1984) 76 AAS 648.

87 Pius XII, Allocution, (1949) 41 AAS 607; John Paul II, Allocution, (2001) 93 AAS 363–364. Pius XII cited Romans 2:14–15 when referring to the law written by the Creator in the human heart, having already cited this biblical text in part in his 1945 allocution.

88 Paul VI, Allocution, (1971) 63 AAS 139, adopts an appreciative yet critical stance towards the Church's Roman and civil law heritage.

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90 de Paolis, V and D'Auria, A, Le Norme Generali (Rome, 2008), p 55.Google Scholar

91 Thus the 1990 Code did not follow the 1983 Code in its legislation on general decrees, general executive decrees, statutes, regulations and instructions: Nedungatt, G (ed), A Guide to the Eastern Code (Rome, 2002), p 810Google Scholar.

92 Coughlin, J, Canon Law: a comparative study with Anglo-American legal theory (Oxford, 2011)Google Scholar. Interestingly, the author explicitly recalls the utrumque ius tradition. A good conspectus of jurisprudential ideas is Freeman, M (ed), Lloyd's Introduction to Jurisprudence (eighth edition, London, 2008)Google Scholar.

93 Optatam totius, n 16 in Tanner, Decrees, vol II, p 956.

94 Ombres, R, ‘Canon law and the mystery of the Church’, (1996/1997) 62 Irish Theological Quarterly 200–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hite, J and Ward, D, Readings, Cases, Materials in Canon Law (revised edition, Collegeville, PA, 1990)Google Scholar.

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97 Pius XII, Allocution, (1947) 39 AAS 495 and 497.

98 Pius XII, Allocution, (1945) 37 AAS 259.

99 Corecco, The Theology of Canon Law, p 137.

100 Pius XII, Allocution, (1945) 37 AAS 261.

101 Corecco, The Theology of Canon Law, p 75.

102 De Paolis and D'Auria, Le Norme Generali, p 173.

103 Pius XII, Allocution, (1949) 41 AAS 608.

104 V Bertolone, La Salus Animarum nell'Ordinamento Giuridico della Chiesa (Rome, 1987), pp 30–31 (Bertolone relies on Pius XII's teaching, including the 1945 allocution, for most of these specifications); M Wijlens, ‘Salus animarum suprema lex: mercy as a legal principle in the application of canon law?’, (1994) 54 The Jurist 560–590.

105 Ombres, R, ‘Canonical equity’ in Arrieta, J (ed), Ius Divinum, p 552Google Scholar.

106 Ciprotti, P, Lezioni di Diritto Canonico: parte generale (Padua, 1943)Google Scholar. John Paul II, Allocution, (1993) 85 AAS 142–143, commented on how rotal jurisprudence had anticipated in some matters what was later codified while proceeding within the limits of divine natural law, which cannot be trespassed. He also said that the Rota had to safeguard the immutability of divine law.

107 Navarrete, ‘Introduzione’, p 11. Cardinal Navarrete (1920–2010) made important contributions to the new codification of matrimonial law.

108 John Paul II, Allocution, (1996) 88 AAS 776.

109 Pius XII, Allocution, (1946) 38 AAS 397.

110 Paul VI, Allocution, (1970) 62 AAS 112.

111 Paul VI, Allocution, (1973) 65 AAS 98. This brief summary of the allocution does not do justice to all that is relevant to the theological nature of canon law.

112 F Urrutia, ‘Aequitas canonica’, (1990) 63 Apollinaris 205–239.

113 John Paul II, Speech of presentation to the Synod of Bishops, (1991) 83 AAS 491. For the term ‘merely ecclesiastical laws’ see Canon 1490 of the 1990 Code and Canon 11 of the 1983 Code.

114 This twofold approach was applied in detail by Ombres, R, ‘Faith, doctrine and Roman Catholic canon law’, (1987) 1 Ecc LJ 33–41Google Scholar, being the revised version of the lecture given in 1988 to the Ecclesiastical Law Society at its first one-day conference.

115 John Paul II, Allocution, (1993) 85 AAS 141.

116 Paul VI Allocution, (1973) 65 AAS 96: John Paul II, Allocution, (1995) 87 AAS 1018.

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119 Congar, Y, ‘Ecclesiological awareness in the East and in the West from the sixth to the eleventh century’ in Sherwood, P (ed), The Unity of the Churches of God (Baltimore, 1963), p 138Google Scholar. The original French term in Congar's 1959 article, translated as ‘applied ecclesiology’, was ‘l'ecclésiologie vécue’, anticipating the independently reached formulation in R Ombres, ‘Why then the law?’ (1974) 55 New Blackfriars 302.

120 Paul VI, Allocution, (1970) 62 AAS 114. He mentioned this before turning to the Mosaic law, natural law as presupposed by the New Testament and positive law. Positive law is always sustained or suggested by natural law.