1983 Code of Canon Law

Papal coat of arms of Saint John Paul II

On 25 January 1983,[7] with the Apostolic Constitution Sacrae disciplinae leges[8] John Paul II promulgated the current Code of Canon Law for all members of the Catholic Church who belonged to the Latin Church. It entered into force the first Sunday of the following Advent,[3] which was 27 November 1983.[4] In an address given on November 21, 1983 to the participants in a course at the Gregorian University in Rome on the new Code of Canon Law, the Pope described the new Code as "the last document of Vatican II".[9]

This apostolic constitution instituted the 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church.[10] John Paul II later promulgated a code of canon law for the 22 sui juris Eastern Catholic Churches—the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches—by means of the Apostolic Constitution Sacri Canones of 18 October 1990.[11]

While there have been many vernacular translations of the Code, only the original Latin text has the force of law.[12]

The Code is organized into seven Books, which are further divided into Part, Section, Title, Chapter and Article. Not every book contains all five subdivisions. Organized hierarchically, the subdivisions are

• Book (Bk.)
  • Part (Pt.)
    • Section (Sec.)
      • Title (Tl.)
        • Chapter (Ch.)
          • Article (Art.)

Most of the Code does not utilize all these subdivisions but one example is

• "Book II. The People of God;
  • Part II. The Hierarchical Constitution of the Church;
    • Section II. Particular Churches and Their Groupings;
      • Title III. The Internal Ordering of Particular Churches;
        • Chapter II. The Diocesan Curia;
          • Article II. The Chancellor, other Notaries and the Archives."

The basic unit of the Code is the canon. Its subdivisions appear as

• Canon (Can.)
  • Paragraph (§, e.g. §2)
    • Number (°, e.g. 3°)

Some canons contain "numbers" without "paragraphs", while most canons contain "paragraphs", and most "paragraphs" do not contain "numbers".

This is the outline of the seven books of the 1983 Code of Canon Law.

• BOOK I. GENERAL NORMS (Cann. 1–203)

Explains the general application of laws

• BOOK II. THE PEOPLE OF GOD (Cann. 204–746)

Goes into the rights and obligations of laypeople and clergy, and outlines the hierarchical organization of the Church

• BOOK III. THE TEACHING FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH (Cann. 747–833)

Christian ministry, missionary activity, education, and social communication

• BOOK IV. THE SANCTIFYING FUNCTION OF THE CHURCH (Cann. 834–1253)

Sacraments and other acts of worship; places of worship; feast-days and fast-days

• BOOK V. THE TEMPORAL GOODS OF THE CHURCH (Cann. 1254–1310)

Ownership, contracts, and wills; akin to the civil Business Law

• BOOK VI. SANCTIONS IN THE CHURCH (Cann. 1311–1399)

Crimes and punishment

• BOOK VII PROCESSES (Cann. 1400–1752)

Procedural law; trials and tribunals; special processes; penal procedures; administrative procedures

This part of the Codex contains the general rules concerning

• legal sources
• physical and juridic persons
• governance and offices
• the computation of time

Legal sources are laws (including custom as a special way of legislation because of the need of the approval of the legislator), which contain universal regulations, general decrees (legislative or executory), instructions and statutes which refer to a special group, and in case of statutes are legislated by this group itself, and administrative acts, which only decide single cases.

Persons are physical persons or juridic persons. Not everyone is considered a "physical person" according to the definition of the 1983 Code, because one is constituted a person with consequent duties and rights only by baptism.

The Codex specifies conditions for the validity of a juridical act, especially in relation to form, coercion, misapprehension and lack of participation.

Legal power is divided into the three authorities of legislative, executive and judicial. The ability to conduct juridical acts can be attached to an office or it can be delegated to a person. Appointment and loss of ecclesiastical office are regulated.

Time regulates prescription, which goes along with the national regulations, but can only be achieved in good faith, and definitions of time.

Book two describes the "People of God". It discusses the general rights and obligations of members of the church, and then discusses the ordering of the church, from the Holy See to the local parish.

The hierarchical constitution of religious and secular institutes and societies of apostolic life is shown to a degree adequate to explain the scope of applicability of the regulations of part two. A religious institute is a society in which members, according to proper law, pronounce public vows. This book is divided into three parts:

• The Christian faithful
• The hierarchical constitution of the church
• Institutes of consecrated life and societies of apostolic life.

The Christian faithful shows the obligations of the faithful in common, those of the lay and those of the sacred ministers or clerics with special consideration of the formation and incardination and excardination of clerics and personal prelatures. Furthermore, the associations of the Christian faithful especially their recognition as a juridic person are constituted, divided in public, private associations and those of the lay.

Part II is entitled, "The Hierarchical Constitution of the Church". This part describes the composition, rights and obligations of the Supreme Authority of the Church, consisting of the Roman Pontiff, the College of Bishops, the Synod of Bishops, the College of Cardinals, the Roman Curia and the Papal legates. A secular institute is an institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful, living in the world, strive for the perfection of charity and seek to contribute to the sanctification of the world, especially from within. Societies of apostolic life do not use a vow.

Book III describes the teaching function of the church. The forms of teaching are the ministry of the Divine Word in the forms of the preaching of the word of God and the catechetical instruction, the missionary action of the church, the Catholic education in schools, Catholic universities and other institutes of higher studies and the ecclesiastical universities and faculties, the instruments of communication and books in particular and finally the profession of faith.

In book four the function of the church and its religious acts are explained. This book is composed of three parts

• the sacraments
• the other acts of divine worship
• sacred places and times

The sacraments are baptism, confirmation, the most holy Eucharist, penance, anointing of the sick, holy orders and marriage. These sacraments are described with conditions, ceremony and participants.

Other acts of divine worship are sacramentals, the liturgy of the hours, ecclesiastical funerals, the veneration of the saints, sacred images and relics and the vow and oath.

Sacred places are those which are dedicated for divine worship or for the burial of the faithful. The Code knows five kinds of sacred places: churches, oratories and private chapels, shrines, altars and cemeteries. Sacred times are holy days of obligation, feast days and days of penance.

[16]

This part of the Corpus Juris is the regulation of the civil law. There are instructions concerning the acquisition and administration of goods especially the acquisition by bestowal either through an act inter vivos or through an act mortis causa and contracts with special care of alimentation.

Book VI contains the canonical equivalent to secular criminal law. The book has two parts:

• Delicts and penalties in general
• Penalties for individual delicts

The first part declares the necessity of a violation of a law and shows the limits and requirements of such a penal law. It determines reasons, which eliminate the punishment as lack the use of reason, nonage (less than seventeen years), mistake in law or facts, missing causality or intent and self-defence. It also describes social cases as complicity, wilful default and attempt. Possible penalties are censures (excommunication and suspension), expiatory penalties (prohibition or an order concerning residence in a certain place or territory, privation of a power, office, function, right, privilege, faculty, favor, title or insignia) and penal remedies and penances. Finally the right of the application and cessation of penalties is regulated

The second part shows individual delicts, divided into delicts against religion and unity of the church, those against ecclesiastical authorities and the freedom of the church, those against special obligations, those against human life and freedom, usurpation of ecclesiastical functions and delicts in their exercise, and the crime of falsehood. In addition to these cases (and those stated in other laws) the external violation of a divine or canonical law can be punished when the special gravity of the violation demands punishment and there is an urgent need to prevent or repair scandals.

Book VII contains the legal procedure. It is divided in 5 parts.

• Trials in general
• The contentious trial
• Special processes
• The penal process
• The method of proceeding in hierarchical recourse and in the removal or transfer of pastors

The first part trials in general defines the court system, its two local instances and the Roman Pontiff as the supreme judge with the representation by the tribunals of the Apostolic See, especially the Roman Rota. It determines the participants of the lawsuit, the judge, the auditors and relators, the promoter of justice, the Defender of the Bond, the notary, the petitioner, the respondent, and the procurators for litigation and advocates. Finally it describes the discipline to be observed in tribunals, with the duty of judges and ministers, the order of adjudication, the time limits and delays, the place of the trial, the persons to be admitted to the court, the manner of preparing and keeping the acts, and the actions and exceptions in general and specific.

The contentious trial begins with the introductory libellus of litigation and the citation and notification of juridical act. The joinder of the issue occurs when the terms of the controversy are defined by the judge, through a decree of the judge. Further on, this part explains the trial of the litigation, especially the absence of a party, the intervention of a third person and the proofs. There are six kinds of proof: declarations of the parties, documents, testimonies, experts, judicial examination and inspection, and presumptions. After taking evidence the acts are published, the case concluded and then discussed. The case ends with the sentence of the judge. The sentence can be challenged by complaint of nullity and by appeal. Finally the res judicata and restitutio in integrum, the execution of the judgement, the judicial expenses and gratuitous legal assistance are regulated. As an alternative to this contentious trial there is the possibility of an oral contentious process.

Part three defines special processes and their special regulations, the process for declaring the nullity of marriage, cases of separation of spouses, process for the dispensation from a marriage ratum sed non consummatum, the process in the presumed death of spouses, and cases for declaring the nullity of sacred ordination. This part also shows methods of avoiding trials.

Part four shows the proceedings of the penal process, with the preliminary investigation, the trial, and the adhesive procedure.

The last part shows the methods of proceeding in administrative recourse, which can be made by any person who claims to have been aggrieved by a decree, and the removal or transfer of pastors with display of the reasons for the removal or transfer.

The final canon, 1752, ends with the teleological and juridical principle that the supreme law of the Church is the salvation of souls (commonly formulated Salus animarum lex suprema est.)

After the promulgation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, popes have amended it five times, with changes to 39 canons in total (111, 112, 535, 750, 838, 868, 1008, 1009, 1086, 1108, 1109, 1111, 1112, 1116, 1117, 1124, 1127, 1371, and 1671–1691).[17]

On 18 May 1998 Pope John Paul II issued the motu proprio Ad tuendam fidem, which amended two canons (750 and 1371) of the 1983 Code of Canon Law and also two canons (598 and 1436) of the 1990 Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, so as to add "new norms which expressly impose the obligation of upholding truths proposed in a definitive way by the Magisterium of the Church, and which also establish related canonical sanctions."[18]

On 26 October 2009 Pope Benedict XVI issued the motu proprio Omnium in Mentem, which amended five canons (1008, 1009, 1086, 1117, 1124) of the 1983 Code of Canon Law clarifying that, among those in Holy Orders, only bishops and priests received the power and mission to act in the person of Christ the Head while deacons obtained the faculty to exercise the diakonias of service, Word, and charity. The amendments also removed formal defection from the Catholic faith as excusing Catholics from the canonical form of marriage.[19][20]

On 15 August 2015 Pope Francis issued the motu proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus, which amended twenty-one canons (1671–1691) to reform the process of determining matrimonial nullity. The document was made public on 8 September 2015.[21][22]

On 31 May 2016 Pope Francis issued the motu proprio De concordia inter codices, which amended ten canons (111, 112, 535, 868, 1108, 1109, 1111, 1112, 1116 and 1127) to reconcile the norms of the Code of Canon Law with those of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. He did so after consultation with a committee of experts in Eastern and Latin canon law organized by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.[23]

On 3 September 2017 Pope Francis issued the motu proprio Magnum principium, which amended one canon (838) to grant episcopal conferences authority over liturgical translations.[24]

On 19 March 2019, Pope Francis issued an apostolic letter given motu proprio Communis vita.[25] It institutes ipso facto dismissal of religious who are absent for a full year illegitimately from their religious house. It replaces canons 694 and 729 in their entirety, with a vacatio legis of 10 April 2019.