To work for the proper implementation of canon law is to play an extraordinarily

constructive role in continuing the redemptive mission of Christ. Pope John Paul II

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13 oct 2024

Research links

Codex Vigens

Introduction

Supplement

Repertorium

Overview

Codex Vigens - Introduction

Canonical information has never been more available to ecclesiastical leaders, ministers, and scholars than it is today, but the very volume of that material, its complexity, and the often deficient methods of a storing and retrieving that information, makes accessing it a formidable challenge even to canonists let alone to others interested in Church law. The Codex Vigens attempts to meet, in part, that challenge for Western and Eastern codified canon law.

Background

As John Paul II noted when he promulgated the 1983 Code, canon law provides order to the Catholic ecclesial society, but the nature of the Church as a communio of persons and communities, impelled by faith to bring the light of Christ to an incalculable variety of situations, requires a legal system that is simultaneously able to facilitate the application of old insights to new problems, welcome new solutions to old questions, and, as circumstances suggest, even incorporate new responses to first-time issues.

Catholic Canon Law—in part because it is modeled on ancient Roman law, in part because it works in service to doctrine—achieves this balance between stability, adaptability, and creativity by undergoing textual refinements by ecclesiastical authority, experiencing concrete applications to life by pastoral ministers, and by being subjected to continuous scholarly examination by qualified thinkers. This marked interdependence of ecclesiastical authority, pastoral experience, and academic inquiry makes canon law unique among the world's legal systems and presents special challenges to Church leaders, pastors, and scholars researching canon law.

Ratio of the

Codex Vigens

Bouscaren, sj

(1884-1971)

The Codex Vigens builds on good ideas that came before it (notably, the Canon Law Digest) and complements some good ideas already underway (such as Canon Law Abstracts).

Canonists practicing under the Pio-Benedictine Code (and indeed, those doing research on it now) owed an immense debt of gratitude to T. Lincoln Bouscaren, the American Jesuit canonist, teacher, and chronicler of codified law as it unfolded in the Roman Church during the first half of the twentieth century. For nearly 40 years, Bouscaren collected, translated, and systematically published (helped in his later years by his co-religionist James O'Connor) as many official and semi-official documents of the Holy See impacting the 1917 Code as he could find. The development of the 1917 Code and many of its most important pastoral applications cannot be traced without access to Bouscaren's magnificent Canon Law Digest.

In certain respects, of course, Boucaren's project can be improved upon today: (a) in this electronic age, canonical research must be computerized and not remain limited to hardcopy publications; (b) the emergence of episcopal decision-making in the wake of the Second Vatican Council makes more important the inclusion of governing decisions by local ecclesiastical authorities as well as those coming from the Holy See; and (c) the variety of academic research into canonistics needs to be more effectively bought to the attention of and shared among Church leaders, pastoral ministers, and thinkers. The Codex Vigens attempts to meet these three canonical research needs.

The volume of materials coming from the Holy See and around the world is significant, but those being produced by canonical commentators and academics in related fields is immense. A great effort at tracking this scholarly material as it appears in canon law journals is being carried out by members of the Canon Law Society of Great Britain & Ireland though its famous Canon Law Abstracts. No attempt to duplicate their service (or that of, say, the Canon Law Society of America by indexing its valuable 'Advisory Opinions') is feasible, and none is attempted here. Other religious research databases (such as ATLA), while sometimes useful for canonical research, are not geared to the particular needs of canonical researchers. Codex Vigens is organized according to the methods and categories of those researching canon law topics.

Materials and 'sources' (fontes) encountered in canon law

Canonical researchers need access to two broad kinds of materials, official or normative provisions, such as canons, decrees, decisions, and so on, and private or scholarly materials, such as academic commentaries and reflections. (The concrete experiences of pastoral administrators, while of importance in shaping the canonical system as noted above, usually enter that system either by being legislated by Church authority or by being discussed among Church scholars.)

These two broad kinds of materials being appreciated, in gathering and organizing normative materials, canonists have long distinguished between fontes essendi (sources of law's being, such as popes for the universal Church and bishops for local Churches) and fontes cognoscendi (sources for knowing what the law is, such as ecclesiastical journals or compendia of dicasterial decisions). Despite the risk of some duplications and omissions in such a system, this two-part approach to normative matters is followed in the Codex Vigens.

Learned materials, on the other hand (which lack a meaningful fons essendi) are usually organized with reference to where they were published (according to their fons cognoscendi, as it were). In other words, the fontes essendi of canon law always have one referent (Church leadership) while fontes cognoscendi of canon law could be concerned with either ecclesiastical leadership or with academics.

The specific fontes essendi and the fontes cognoscendi consulted in developing the Codex Vigens are discussed in more detail at Codex Vigens Repertorium, here.

How to use

this resource

Like the Canon Law Digest, the Codex Vigens is arranged fundamentally by individual canon number, but groupings of canons, as designated by the Legislator, are indicated here as well.

For each canon or set of canons, there are from one to four categories of information provided as follows: Official, Semi-Official, Scholarly, and Other. Occasionally Sub-categories and are added for clarification. Information is presented first in order of publication date, but with more recent publications listed first:

Official

― Papal ― The Roman Pontiff.

― Dicasterial ― Offices of the Holy See.

― Particular ― Episcopal conferences, arch/dioceses, and/or religious orders.

Semi-Official

― Semi-Official ― There are relatively few items listed here but, for example, a dicastery official delivering a talk on a matter treated by his dicastery, while not speaking on behalf of his office, is not simply one more scholar looking at an issue. Also, material published in L'Osservatore Romano under three asterisks (***) is, by convention, regarded as 'semi-official'

Learned

― Scholarly ― Especially monographs, as well as articles, essays, chapters, and so forth that are not already listed in Canon Law Digest. If the full citation for a given scholarly work is not given in Books I-VII (as often happens for materials published in festschrifts and the like) it is provided in the Repertorium.

Other

― Other ― Identifies other treatments (often non-canonical) of the canon in question or its subject matter or provides links to especially useful materials available.

Of course, not every canon was the object of all, or even of any, of the above kinds of treatments. But sometimes, just knowing what one need not look for is a help.

Additional

Points

Language conventions. The organizing language of the Codex Vigens is American English (e.g., "John Paul II" instead of "Johannes Paulus II"). For the sake of simplicity, however, names of months in the official citations below are always given in Latin and abbreviated. Document titles are usually given in their original language (e.g., "De munere Episcopi Romae Successoris Sancti Petri abdicatione" instead of "Abdication of the Pope"). The language of the document title is the language of the document itself except where noted otherwise (e.g., Pope Francis' Evangelii gaudium, despite its Latin title, was written in Italian and is so noted). Links to documents lead to English versions (usually the Vatican's) except as noted (e.g., Spirituali militium curae links to the Latin text in default of an English translation).

Canons Cited or Impacted. One of the most useful aspects–if also one of the most challenging to develop–of the Codex Vigens is the listing, in gray-shading, of 'Canons cited in (or impacted by) such-and-such document:'. As a rule, important canons expressly cited in a given document are listed in this shaded area, while canons that seem to be impacted by the document in question, but which are not actually cited, are listed in parentheses. Obviously, some judgments had to be made in order to prevent explicit but trivial canonical citations from crowding the information below, while inclusions of some merely implicit canonical references were made but with which other scholars might disagree.

Scholarly Materials and Notes. The scholarly materials listed in the Codex Vigens avoid as much as possible duplicating information offered by the GB&I Canon Law Abstracts and the CLSA Advisory Opinions. Always consult those listings first, and then check the Codex Vigens to see whether other entries have been located and listed.

Some information specific to the Western Code or Eastern Code respectively is offered and explained on those pages.

Technical

Points

All canons are listed in four digits (e.g., 0001; 0002; 0003; instead of simply 1, 2, 3). Searching for canons by their four-digit number followed by an semi-colon takes one directly to the desired canon and eliminates the annoyance that a search for a typical canon numeral will turn up a surfeit of stray information.

• An official citation for an official document is always presented when available.

• Dates for Roman dicasterial documents are indicated in terms of publication and not papal approval.

A note on

legislative

history

The legislative history of a canon under study should always be examined. The most efficient way to do this is to consult: Edward Peters, Incrementa in Progressu 1983 Codicis Iuris Canonici: a Legislative History of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, (Wilson & Lafleur, 2005) xci +1549 pp. Review(s): J. Huels, Studia Canonica 40 (2006) 261-262; and Thomas Green, The Jurist 67 (2007) 265-267.

Two works are very important for appreciating the textual development of the canons of the 1983 Code (and thus are referenced in the Incrementa), namely:

• Pontificium Consilium de Legum Textibus Interpretandis, Congregatio Plenaria, diebus 20-29 Octobris 1981 habita, (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1991) 637 pp. Reviews: D. Le Tourneau, Studia Canonica 28 (1994) 266-267 and J. Alesandro The Jurist 51 (1991) 504-507.

• Pontificia Commissio Codici Iuris Canonici Recognoscendo, Relatio complectens synthesim animdaversionum ab Em.mis atque Exc.mis Patribus commissionis ad novissimum schema codicis iuris canonici exhibitarum, cum responsionibus a secretaria et consultoribus datis, (Typis Polyglottis Vaticanis, 1981) 358 pp., largely available in Communicationes 14-16 (1982-1984).

See also: Pont. Comm. for the Reform of the Code of Canon Law, “Principia quae Codicis iuris canonici recognitionem dirigant”, Communicationes 1 (1969) 77-85, Eng. trans., Canon Law Society of America, Code of Canon Law, Latin-English Edition, New English Translation, (Canon Law Society of America, 1999) xxxvi-xxxvii.

See also CanonLaw.info, Resources on the Legislative History of the 1983 Code, here.

User notes

There might be editions of works that pre-date or post-date those cited herein. Reviews and Notes are grey-highlighted, on-line biographical information is underlined blue-linked, and matters in green highlights are of special interest. Yellow highlights are cautions for users while the markers "=", "≠", and "≈" are placeholders for use by webmaster.

Materials on this website represent the opinions of Dr. Edward Peters and are offered in accord with Canon 212 § 3.

This website undergoes continual refinement and development. No warranty of completeness or correctness is made.

Dr. Peters' views are not necessarily shared by others in the field nor are they intended as canonical or civil advice.

Staging

― Academic ― Preeminently doctoral dissertations and licentiate theses on canon law submitted to pontifical faculties, but also licentiate and master's theses submitted to ecclesiastical faculties and/or Catholic schools of theology and dealing with a topic of direct relevance to canon law. For more information on academic works in canon law, see the International Directory of Academic Works in Canon Law, here.