The canonical right or canon law ( Latin juice canonicum in ), is the whole of the laws and the payments adopted or accepted by the authorities Catholique S for the government of the Église and its faithful. The canonical right has range on the agreement S concluded by the Church, neither of the questions of Dogme strictly speaking, nor finally about the Liturgie.

The term comes from the Greek κανών / kanôn , the rule, the model. The term quickly took a ecclesiastical connotation by indicating at the 4th century the ordinances of the Concile S, in opposition to the word νώμος / nômos (the habit, the law) used especially for the Law S of the civil authorities.
Because of this use, the term canonist usually returns to an expert of this right intern of the Church, while a lawyer can be an expert of right religious or ecclesiastical if he knows the right of his country touching to the various religions.

History

See also: History of the canonical right

The canonical right was worked out gradually, borrowing initially from the Roman legal corpus. As from the 4th century, the popes created new standards by the means of letters Décrétale S, of which oldest known go back to the pontificate of Sirice. But these decisions have authority only until the following one, and the sources of the right are very dispersed.

The canonists of the the Middle Ages, by a gigantic work of compilation of the sources (ordinances of the Council S, decrees of the Pope S, etc) will gradually manage to unify it. The first of them, at the end of the 4th century, is the monk Denys Small the, author of the Dionysiana . Then let us quote at the 9th century the Capitula of Angilramne , the capitulary Faux of Benoit de Mayenne and the Fausses décrétales of the pseudo-Isidore of Seville. At the time of the Gregorian Réforme will also appear of other collections like the Decretum of Burchard de Worms, as well as fundamental the Dictatus papæ of Gregoire VII, defining, according to the point of view of the pope, the relation between the temporal powers and the Holy See. Yves of Chartres also has a paramount importance thanks to its methodical encyclopedia, the Panormia .

Until the 11th century however, the canonical right is treated on a mode before any arts person, on the mode of compilation more than of the reasoned treaty. At the same time at the university of Bologna, the civil law is becoming rational. At this point in time towards 1140 Gratien publishes its Concordia discordantium canonum (“Harmony of the unmatched guns”), a methodical treaty of the right, which will be useful until in 1917. In 1234, the pope Gregoire IX publishes Décrétales which bears its name, collection written by saint Raymond de Peñafort, composed of five books gathering 185 titles. Coming after the Decree, it will be called the Extra Liber (X in summary). In 1298, the pope Boniface VIII publishes a new collection, making following the five books of Décrétales: the Sexte (“sixth book”, which in fact is him also composed of five books). In 1317, Jean XXII publishes the Clémentines, collection drawn up on the order of the pope Clément V. Will come then, from their insertion with the CIC by the printer and Parisian professor Jean Chapuis in 1500 and 1503, the Extravagant ones of Jean XXII and the Extravagant communes, décrétales several popes.

A wave of systematization takes place at the 16th century under the impulse of the Pape Gregoire XIII, lawyer of formation. During the Council of Thirty, Pie IV creates a commission, the correctores romani (correct Romans) to revise the Décret of Gratien. Under Gregoire XIII, itself former member, their number is increased and finally, in 1582 is promulgated the Corpus juris canonici which make authority with the liturgical ordos, the acts conciliar and the episcopal and apostolic acts.

The era of the contemporary canonical right, opens, under the impulse of the Fathers of the council the Vatican I, when in 1904 Pietro Gasparri (future cardinal Gasparri) is named with the head of the commission of coding. Once again, the canonists take as a starting point the projections carried out by the Civil law, in the species the Civil code French Napoleonean. In 1917, finally, is promulgated the new Code of canonical right.

The Code of right canonical of 1983

See also: canonical Code of right of 1983

At present, the Code making authority in the Latin Église is that of 1983 -   the Eastern Églises are subjected, they, with the Code of the guns of the Eastern Churches (1990). It was promulgated by Jean-Paul II and takes account of the deep changes brought by the council the Vatican II.

Its idea germinated as of 1959 in the spirit of Jean XXIII. It was then taken again by Paul VI, which draws up the information system strategic plans of the new code. But it is only in 1981 that a commission puts itself truly at work.

The code of 1983 stresses less the character hierarchical and ordered Église. He wants on the contrary to promote the image of Church-people of God (reference explicit to the Constitution of 1964 Lumen Gentium ) and of a hierarchy to the service of the others (Can. 204):

the faithful ones of Christ are those which, as incorporated in Christ by the baptism, are made up as God's people and which, for this reason, facts participating in their manner with the sacerdotal, prophetic and royal function of Christ, have to exert, each one according to its own condition, the mission that God entrusted to the Church so that it achieves it in the world.

The code develops in particular the adaptability to take account of the pastoral requirements and founds a more flexible mode for the exemptions (relaxation of the law in a particular case). Nevertheless, this new range of possibilities well was not always perceived, the lack of training of the priests often preventing his application or generating difficulties.

Plan

The Code is composed of seven books:

1. general Standards

2. God's people
3. the function of teaching of the Church
4. the function of sanctification of the Church
5. temporal goods in the Church
6. sanctions in the Church
7. the lawsuits

See too

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