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Ecclesiastical Law and the Year of Faith: Principles for Reflection and Application

On September , , Pope Benedict XVI directed the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts to begin a reexamination of the penal law of the Church with the goal of revising Book VI of the Code of Canon Law to adapt it to the needs and circumstances of the present moment. As Bishop Juan Ignacio Arrieta, Secretary of the Pontifical Council, expressed it well: “The initiative sprang from a deeply held conviction of the Pontiff, the fruit of years of personal experience, and from his concern for the integrity and the consistent application of Church discipline.”1 The process for reform of Book VI is ongoing. What is important for the purposes of this article is not the ultimate content of the reform, but the very possibility or cause for it. When I read with anticipation of the intention to revise ecclesiastical penal law, it led me to recall the first article I had written in the area of canon law, published in the pages of this same journal,2 and on a specific subject I would not pursue further. It sought primarily to present the history of the Church’s legal discipline regarding Freemasonry. By way of conclusion, it addressed briefly the question not infrequently asked during the last several