Profilo storico del Codex Juris Canonici nel centenario della sua pubblicazione (1917- 2017)

Abstract

The historical-cultural-ideological context in which the new encoding of canon law is embedded and supported is that of the traditional struggle with modernism and its principles of lay and materialistic matrix conducted by the Catholic Church officially starting from the pontificate of Gregory XVI. The struggle against relativistic modernism and its products such as positivism, democracy, egalitarianism, socialism, capitalism, the modern state, enlightenment, judged by Rome as seditious and futile, conducted through important encyclicals such as Mirari vos, Singular Nos, Qui pluribus, Quanta cura, Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Sacrorum antistitum, finds its summit in the project of a new codification of canon law and of the entire juridical heritage of the Church, Codex Juris Canonici. In this project, in fact, we can find, in a clear and unambiguous way, the desire to renew and reinforce papal centralism, respecting the dictates and the addresses of Vatican I, thus creating a process aimed at countering the centrifugal thrust coming from both the national Churches and the local bishops, overly identified with the fate of their respective territories more than with the universal mission of Rome, by the destabilizing modernist ideologies which aim to weak traditional powers such as Church and Monarchy, delegitimizing the source and basis of their power and hegemony (which were not from the people but from God). Choosing to put his hand on his precious legislative heritage, guardian of ancient traditions and customs, the Church's action proves to be not merely defensive and conservative, but rather decisively innovative, animated by a push for renewal and courage, already evident in the project of social doctrine inaugurated by Leo XIII, which in no way coincides with the usual labels of conservatism and obscurantism generally conceived to describe Catholic political action