Editor’s Introduction

Abstract

Editor’s Introduction Kurt Martens* The current issue of The Jurist contains two articles by His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. There is a reason to publish these two contributions of the same author in the same issue of The Jurist. Cardinal Burke was invited and had accepted to deliver the Tenth Annual James H. Provost Memorial Lecture. The lecture was scheduled to be given at the School of Canon Law of The Catholic University of America on March 14, 2013. However, because of the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI, the sede vacante and the conclave to elect his successor, the lecture was cancelled because the presenter had to be present in Rome. His Eminence graciously agreed to have the text published in The Jurist. At the same time, he agreed to deliver the Eleventh Annual James H. Provost Memorial Lecture at the School of Canon Law of The Catholic University of America on March 20, 2014. This time around, no other business disrupted the James H. Provost Memorial Lecture. In the first article, His Eminence addresses the service of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura to the life of the Church from the perspective of the responsibility of the diocesan bishop for the correct administration of justice, in general, and, in more detail, his responsibility for the local ecclesiastical tribunal, as a privileged locus of his judicial ministry. The major part of the work of the Apostolic Signatura, apart from its direct service to the Roman Curia, is service to diocesan bishops in fulfilling their [End Page 1] fundamental ministry of justice in the particular Churches. The contribution is limited to the treatment of the diocesan bishop and his judicial activity, and does not include the important service to diocesan bishops in what pertains to individual administrative acts. In the second article, His Eminence focuses on the relation between the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and the local or particular Churches. After setting the context in which the subject must be addressed, he addresses the various areas of competence of the Apostolic Signatura in relation to the local Church. Special attention is paid to the competence of the Apostolic Signatura as an administrative tribunal and as the dicastery which “ensures that justice in the Church is correctly administered.” Finally, in his treatment of the competence for the correct administration of justice in the Church, His Eminence provides a longer reflection on the process for the declaration of nullity of marriage, a topic of special discussion during the time of preparation for the upcoming III Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. Special reference is made to question 4f of the Preparatory Document Pastoral Challenges to the Family in the Context of Evangelization. The reflection is a particular fruit of the long experience of the Apostolic Signatura in the care for the correct administration of justice in the Church. Monsignor Kenneth E. Boccafola, Prelate Auditor Emeritus of the Roman Rota, examines in his contribution the lack of faith and its effects on the validity of the matrimonial consent of the baptized. If one lacks faith in marriage as a sacrament, how can he or she celebrate the sacrament validly? He starts by recalling certain principles of the papal magisterium which have been elaborated in Rotal jurisprudence. The question as such is not new: it was also alluded to in certain propositions discussed by the International Theological Commission in their meeting of 1977. The available information on the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops in 2014 and the XIV Ordinary General Assembly in 2015, both on the pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelization, seems to indicate that there is a renewed or ongoing interest in the theme. After the promulgation of the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus in 2009, there was significant interest and speculation regarding what would be the liturgical provision for Personal Ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. While [End Page 2] the new Ordinariates may always celebrate the sacred liturgy according to the Roman Rite, the Ordinariates are granted the faculty “to celebrate the Holy Eucharist...