Code of the Canon Law
Canon law is the law that governs a church. While any faith can have canon law, when most people are speaking about the Code of Canon Law, they are referring to the canon law of the Roman Catholic Church. Based on the fundamental church of Christian teachings until the schisms with the Eastern Orthodox faith and the Protestant Reformation, Roman Catholic canon law is influential to the canon law of most Christian churches.
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Significance
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The Code of Canon Law as we know it today did not exist until 1985, as a revision of the first Code of Canon Law, which was set down in 1917. Pope Pius X had commissioned this first pre-eminent, comprehensive version of official church canon in 1904. Over a 13-year period, the Pontifical Commission for the Codification of Canon Law, headed by Pietro Gasparri, took all known sources of canon law and compiled them into one cohesive written code.
This code is the reference for all legal matters within the church. It is not to be confused with the Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church, which is a statement of the church's tenets of faith. The catechism is not law, while the code is.
History
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Until 1917, canon law was based on interpretation of a range of sources, including papal decree, custom, canon law codices and church legal precedent. The beginnings of canon law are found in oral teachings and early church customs, and in leaders like Paul of Tarsus. The Council of Nicaea created the first set of written canons in 325 A.D., 20 rules that related mostly to clergy and the role of women in the church. For hundreds of years afterward, canon law was a mixture of the rulings and edicts of many local bishops, who had absolute say over the running of their dioceses.
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Chronology
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The Holy See, or the papacy, began to assert itself as the preeminent church authority in the 7th century, making papal decree the primary form of law in the church. These decrees were compiled into texts called codices, along with canons that developed over time throughout the church. The later decision of the pope to leave judgment on church legal cases to the Rota, and the recording of its decisions as legal precedent, was another step. The declaration of papal infallibility at the First Vatican Council in 1870 cemented the ability of the Church of Rome to declare a definitive code of canon law.
Effects
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In the 13th and 14th centuries, Bologna, Italy, became a center for the study of law in Europe, including church canon law. Scholars like Gratian developed codices that helped to simplify and create cohesion for canon law and to instruct centuries of canonists. Since Bologna was also a center for the study of Roman law, which was the inspiration for secular law, there was a great deal of intermingling of ideas between the two schools of law.
Benefits
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Bolognese canonists helped to further define and develop many of the concepts that underpin Western legal traditions. Among these are due process, presumption of innocence and the right to self-defense. Due process requires a defendant to "have his day in court" and the right to face his accusers. The doctrine of "Ius commune," which presumed innocence, also covered the right against incriminating oneself, to provide a defense, the right to counsel and to an open court. The right to self-defense included the right to bear arms in self-defense. These were seen as "natural rights," or rights granted to man by God and consequently inviolate.
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