Knowledge and respect for Canon law is indispensable to the Church’s response to the call to a new evangelization.
So declared Cardinal Raymond Burke (64), the chief jurist of the Holy See, at the Canon Law Conference in Nairobi organized by the Canon Law Society of Kenya. He is the highest ranking Prelate in the area of law in the Church. His official title is the Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.
The conference was attended by 100 priests from all over Kenya, including 10 bishops.
A general ignorance of canon law must be overcome. The false conflict between canon law and the pastoral nature of the Church, between truth and love, must be addressed. All forms of manipulation of the law to advance particular agenda redound to the grave harm of the faithful and of the Church as the Body of Christ.
Liturgical law must enjoy the primacy among canonical norms, for it safeguards the most sacred realities in the Church. These were some of the key ideas covered by His Eminence.
Quoting Blessed John Paul, he said “Priests who faithfully celebrate Mass according to the liturgical norms, and communities which conform to those norms, quietly but eloquently demonstrate their love for the Church.”
The remaking of “the Christian fabric of the ecclesial community,” which is necessary for the “mending of the Christian fabric of society,” will have as a fundamental element a new knowledge of and respect for the canonical discipline of the Church. He emphasized the hypocrisy of exalting charity when we do not practice justice in obedience to God’s law.
Cardinal Burke placed his reflections within the context of the present situation of the Church in a totally secularized culture and the response of the Church to the culture of our time. The response is a new evangelization.
While the question pertains to the life of the universal Church he noted that its application to the life of the Church in the Kenya is evident.
Drawing heavily on the Magisterium of Blessed John Paul, he described it as a tireless call to recognize the Church’s challenge to be faithful to her divinely-given mission and to respond to the challenge by means of a new evangelization. He referred to “On the Vocation and the Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World,” “Pastores Dabo Vobis”, “On the Consecrated Life and Its Mission in the Church and in the World,” and “Novo Millennio Ineunte”.
The Cardinal then proceeded to say that for the Church to remake her own fabric requires that she acknowledge a rupture in her life caused by the failure to see the organic nature of her life, received from Christ, faithfully down the centuries, the gift of the Holy Spirit for the evangelization of the world.
He referred to some aspects of the nature of the Second Vatican Council as being basically misunderstood. There had been a mentality that talked of the elimination of an old constitution and creation of a new one.
He shared some personal experiences as a student of Canon Law in September of 1980, he experienced how much the Church’s discipline was disdained by her priests, in general.
“When I answered the question of a brother priest regarding my area of study, the fairly consistently reaction was expressed in words like these: “I thought that the Church had done away with that,” and “What a waste of your time.”
Some elements had tried to highjack the renewal mandated by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council and this had a particularly devastating effect on the Church’s discipline
“It is profoundly sad to note, for instance, how the failure of knowledge and application of the canon law, which was indeed still in force, contributed significantly to the scandal of the sexual abuse of minors by the clergy in our some parts of the world.”
“Indeed, in the United States of America, my homeland, in which the scandal has been great, it is often asserted that it was caused by the absence of a proper discipline in the Church to deal justly with such abhorrent situations. It is assumed that the Church lacked the proper canonical discipline with which to investigate such crimes and sanction them. The truth of the matter is that the Church had dealt with such crimes in the past, which should come as a surprise to no one, and that she had in place a carefully articulated process by which to investigate accusations, with full respect for the rights of all parties involved, including the protection of potential victims during the time of the investigation; to reach a just decision regarding their truth, and to apply the appropriate sanction. The discipline in place was not followed because it was not known and, in fact, was presumed not to exist.”
“Pope Paul VI repeatedly confronted the loss of respect for the service of canon law in safeguarding and fostering our life in Christ in the Church.
His repeated appeals for a new appreciation of the Church’s discipline are an indication of the gravity of the weakened situation of canon law, at the time.
Confronting a general opinion that somehow the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council had repudiated the service of Canon Law, he declared: “On the contrary the Council not only does not repudiate canon law, the norm that spells out the duties and defends the rights of the members of the Church, but wishes and desires it as a consequence of the power bequeathed by Christ to his Church, as a necessity of its social and visible nature, its communitarian and hierarchical nature, as the guide of religious life and of Christian perfection, and as the juridical safeguard of liberty itself.”
Canon law is not opposed to freedom but serves “what is needed to safeguard the common good – including the basic good of exercising freedom – which only a well-ordered social order can adequately guarantee.”
Cardinal Burke referred to the fact that years of a lack of knowledge of the Church’s discipline and even of a presumption that such discipline was no longer fitting to the nature of the Church reaped gravely harmful fruits in the Church.
For example, the pervasive violation of the liturgical law of the Church, the revolution in catechesis which often rendered the teaching of the faith vacuous and confused, if not erroneous; the breakdown of the discipline of priestly formation and priestly life, the abandonment of the essential elements of religious life and the devastating loss of fundamental direction in many congregations of religious sisters, brothers and priests; the loss of the identity of charitable, educational and healthcare institutions bearing the name of Catholic; and the failure of respect for the nature of marriage and the time-proven process for judging claims of nullity of marriage in ecclesiastical tribunals.
A frequent manifestation of the confusion and error regarding the irreplaceable role of canon law in the life of the Church has been the claim that the Church’s discipline is, somehow, in opposition to her pastoral care of the faithful. Blessed John Paul confronted this false opposition between Church discipline and her pastoral care on many occasions. Pope Benedict XVI recently recalled his words “The judge… must always guard against the risk of misplaced compassion, which could degenerate into sentimentality, itself pastoral only in appearance.”
In marriage cases, he said, one must avoid pseudo-pastoral claims that would situate questions on a purely horizontal plane.
The supreme good of readmission to Eucharistic Communion after sacramental Reconciliation demands, instead, that due consideration be given to the authentic good of the individuals, inseparable from the truth of their canonical situation
Pope John Paul II pursued with vigor the revision of the 1917 Code of Canon Law.
There was no question in his mind, as a Father of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, about the Council’s desire that the perennial discipline of the Church be addressed to the present time.
Clearly, the Council’s desire regarding Church discipline did not intend the abandonment of her discipline but a new appreciation of it in the context of contemporary challenges.
The renewal of Christian living was the intention of the new code.
These words point to the essential service of canon law in the work of the new evangelization, that is, the living of our life in Christ with the engagement and energy of the first disciples. Canonical discipline is directed to the pursuit, at all times, of holiness of life.
The discipline of the law which opens the way to freedom in loving God and our neighbour.
Far from hindering the living of our life in Christ, canonical discipline safeguards and fosters our Christian life.
By their very nature canonical laws are to be observed.
The theme of the Conference was “Canon Law at the service of justice and freedom in the Church as the People of God”.
Bishop Sulameti, Patron of the Kenya Canon Law Society, and Bishop Dominic Kimengich, President of the Society, in their welcoming addresses said it is an honour for the Church in Kenya to be visited by such an expert. It will give encouragement to the recently set up diocesan tribunals, one of the fruits of previous conferences.
Fr Aphonse Diaz, organiser of the conference for the past 10 years, has spoken of the increasing interest and attention to canon law in this country. This he said is expressed by the regular one hundred or so priests from every diocese who attend the conference each year.
Students from CUEA (Catholic University of East Africa), including some nuns, also attend as well as participants from Uganda and Tanzania.
Msgr Cormac Burke (85), retired judge of the Roman Rota or high court of the Church, who lives in Nairobi, former colleague of Cardinal Burke, a namesake but not a relative, has said that Cardinal Burke made global news recently with his unequivocal support for the US bishops in their ongoing debate with President Obama over Obamacare, which wants to force Catholic health care institutions to prescribe contraceptives and perform abortions, this has threatened these top notch services.
By Fr Conor Donnelly.
