AL KRESTA writes that all legitimate law ultimately finds its source in God . . .

Al Kresta

The Church recognizes many types of law, but all are related. All legitimate law ultimately finds its source and justification in the moral character of God, which forms what is called the eternal law.

All other legitimate law is an expression of this eternal law and includes natural law, revealed law, civil law, and church law. Canon or ecclesiastical law is the official body of laws for the Catholic Church covering faith, morals and discipline. It assists the Church in carrying out her mission to the world and governs the various relationships within her. It covers such things as how to celebrate the sacraments, administer church property, resolve formal conflicts, and organize official groups such as religious orders and lay associations of the faithful.

While canon law is related to both the natural moral law and revealed law, it is identical with neither. Tenets from both are codified in canon law and are thus interchangeable and universal. Christ’s words instituting the Eucharist, for instance, are both divine revelation and part of canon law. These will never change and must be followed everywhere by every priest. But other kinds of canon law are purely disciplinary and subject to change.

From the first century, the apostles and the earliest bishops and pastors had to apply divine revelation in particular cultural and social settings. The kingdom of God had been inaugurated. How would these new citizens of the kingdom organize their community upon the new law of Christ? So some canon law is changeable; some is not. Some canon law applies everywhere, and some is restricted to a particular territory or group.

As the Church grew and exercised the powers of binding and loosing, the body of church orders, liturgical procedures, council canons, and so on also grew. In the mid-12th century, the scholarly monk Gratian collected and organized 4,000 council decrees, papal pronouncements, and texts from the Church fathers in a single work that came to form the first part of the Body of Canon Law, which remained the standard collection until the first full-scale Code of Canon Law was issued in 1917.

When Pope John XXIII announced his intention to call the Second Vatican Council, he also announced a new revision of canon law, which was completed in 1983 and governs the Western Catholic Church. Another code of canons governs the Eastern Churches.

Only a pope or an ecumenical council has the authority to create canon law or interpret it for the universal Church. The Pontifical Commission for the Authentic Interpretation of the Code assists the pope by fielding inquiries about canon law, proposing correct interpretations, and then sending them to the pope for final approval. The Catholic Church’s legal system is the oldest such system continually operating in the world.

AL KRESTA is CEO of Ave Maria Communications and host of Kresta in the Afternoon. Reprinted with permission from his book “Why Do Catholics Genuflect?”  St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2001.

Catechism 101

The office uniquely committed by the Lord to Peter … abides in the Bishop of the Church of Rome. He is the head of the College of Bishops, the vicar of Christ, and the pastor of the universal Church here on earth. Consequently, by virtue of his office, he has supreme, full, immediate and universal ordinary power in the Church, and he can always freely exercise this power.

Those who have been excommunicated or interdicted after the imposition or declaration of the penalty and others obstinately persevering in manifest grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.

Code of Canon Law, #331, 915