You wanna get sued. Tick off a Catholic.
In recent years, clergy and lay people in the United States have increasingly turned to the church’s internal legal system to challenge a bishop’s or pastor’s decision about even the most workaday issues in Catholic life, according to canon lawyers in academia, dioceses and in private practice. Sometimes, the challengers even win.
In one example cited by veteran canon lawyers, parishioners wanted to bar musical performances in their church that weren’t liturgical. Their priest had been renting space to a local band. In another case, a nun filed a petition after a religious superior disclosed the nun’s medical information to others – a potential violation of privacy. Regarding bishops’ often contentious decisions to close parishes, the liberal reform group FutureChurch posts a guide on its website called “Canonical Appeals for Dummies” on seeking Vatican intervention to stay open.
Another trend that annoys me. Canon law has its place for sure, but as Christians we are supposed to be able to work out our differences, no? No.
Canon law, like all other law, is a weapon of convenience to be wielded when it suits your purpose. Anything less would be Un-American.
January 12, 2012 at 5:58 am
"The salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one's eyes." CAN. 1752.
This is my husband's favorite canon. He is a canon lawyer.
January 12, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Credocatholic has said it all.
January 12, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Isn't that why we have law in the Church, so that we can work out our differences fairly? It is better than taking it to civil court.
January 12, 2012 at 5:10 pm
Canon Law of Holy Mother Church:
Suprema Lex Soli Solimarum: The Supreme Law is the Salvation of Souls
A good Lawyer is well schooled.
A great Lawyer is the Masonic Lodge Brother of the Judge.
This seems to hold true in AmChurch.
Holy Mother Church resides authority in Bishops, not Lawyers, for good cause.
No one should sue anyone without the approval of their Priest and Confessor, and the approval after that of their local Ordinary.
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January 12, 2012 at 5:48 pm
Umnnnhhhh….
The St Joseph Foundation (canon lawyers) has been litigating parish-closures for a long time. They do it as advocates for "conservatives."
January 12, 2012 at 5:55 pm
The problem is the Catholic Church is filled with sinners with Roman collars, degrees in theology, degrees in canon law…..
The truth is there but few who have the authority to use it for good, do that. It is a foolish(and far worse) presumption to expect good things from a person because they work for the Catholic Church or are supposed to be good catholics.
Corruption is everywhere
January 12, 2012 at 6:42 pm
'…The problem is the Catholic Church is filled with sinners with Roman collars…"
So what's new?
Judas was a Bishop and a Priest.
If we have a beef with a Bishop or Priest, we must take that concern to she that forms Priests in the image of her Son…
"If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself." St. Augustine
“ I entrust this whole matter in the hands of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, “Mother of the Priest par excellence, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and through Him, of all priests in whom she forms her Son”.
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January 13, 2012 at 12:15 am
And I'd bet none of you reside in the Diocese of Rochester…
January 13, 2012 at 1:45 am
Let's hear you say that when your wife leaves you to sleep and have children with another catholic guy and the Church supprts them as they tutn your own kids against you.
I bet you know diddly about just how evil catholic clerics are!