What is Canon Law?

Canon law is the name for the Catholic Church's order and discipline, structures, rules, and procedures. The Catholic Church has two Codes: one for the Latin Church and one for the Eastern Catholic Church. What is a Code? In traditional law, the laws of a society are collected from a variety of sources from different times. Of course, many of these laws are inconsistent. The lawyers and judges develop many rules for deciding which rules to use in different situations. A 'code' is a single collection of all the laws in one place, with all the inconsistencies removed. A code is intended to be consistent, systematic, and logical. The official language of canon law is Latin; everything else is a mere translation. Canon law is a tool to guide the Church as a large human institution from differing cultures and languages. In short, Canon Law informs the community on how to conduct themselves and protects the rights of the faithful.

Law is not new to the Church. The people of the Old Testament were very familiar with law, as the Torah ruled many parts of their lives. With the emergence of Christianity, the New Testament became a guide for the young Christian communities. In addition, some communities produced 'handbooks' that provided guidance for various aspects of Christian life. Councils, like the Council of Nicea, also provided norms. The first collections of canon law were primarily private collections of ecclesiastical laws from councils and Roman Pontiffs. In the twelfth century, a university scholar in Bologna named Gratian was commissioned by the Pope to collect all of the legal documents that had been created since the beginning days of an organized church. The collection was known as the Concordia discordantum canonum or Gratian's Decretum, and was used throughout Europe by officials of the Church as an official legal resource.

At the time of the First Vatican Council, the leaders of the church decided that the law needed to be consolidated into one codified system. Cardinal Gasparri led the project, and the official Code of Canon Law was promulgated, or approved by the Roman Pontiff, in 1917 and was in force until 1983.

During the twentieth century, the church had undergone great theological growth, especially as a result of Vatican Council II. It was decided that the law had to integrate the sense of spiritual renewal as well and after years of revisions, Pope John Paul II promulgated the revised Code of Canon Law on January 25, 1983. This is the same code that is used to this very day.

The code is divided into seven books:

• General Norms,
• People of God,
• Teaching Office,
• Sanctifying Office,
• Temporal Goods,
• Sanctions,
• and Procedures.

There are 1752 canons in the Code. The patron saint of canon law is St. Raymond of Peñafort, whose feast day is January 7.