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Leges
Ecclesiae conservant libertatem Spiritus
Sancti.
Canon Law, the oldest continuously
functioning legal system in the western world,
is the
internal legal system
of the Catholic Church. It affects virtually
every aspect of the faith life of some one
billion Catholic Christians throughout the
world. But, as Pope John Paul II explained when
he signed
the 1983 Code into law, canon law "is in no way
intended as a substitute for faith, grace,
charisms, and especially charity in the life of
the Church and of the faithful. On the contrary,
its purpose is rather to create such an order in
the ecclesial society that, while assigning the
primacy love, grace, and charisms, it at the
same time renders their organic development
easier in the life of both the ecclesial society
and the individual persons who belong to it."
See ap. con.
Sacrae disciplinae leges, para.16.
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