Ecclesiastical Legislation Research Articles

De feriis in Roman-Canonical Legal Tradition

Throughout history, the legal regulation of holidays has been the product of human needs for rest and entertainment, religious beliefs, and pragmatic economic imperatives dictating the optimal use of time to produce goods. The first part of the article examines the significance of the division between dies fasti and dies nefasti and explores the categorisation of holidays in the Roman pagan era and their legal implications. The author then looks at the origins of Sunday as a day of rest and considers Theodosius’ reform of the Roman calendar. This reform established the liturgical year in the emerging Christian state, and enduringly shaped the calendar of most European countries. The third part considers the attitude of the late Roman state towards Jewish and pagan festivals, and the innovations in medieval ecclesiastical legislation concerning holidays. The final section of the paper reflects on the role of tradition in the state’s recognition of religious festivals as public holidays.

Participation of Religious Brothers in the Exercise of Authority in Clerical Religious Institutes

The paper has been inspired by the rescript of Pope Francis issued as a motu proprio on the appointment of superiors in clerical institutes. According to the binding ecclesiastical legislation, such practices used to be prohibited, although the Holy See would grant permissions on a case-by-case basis. The article discusses the idea of exercising authority in religious institutes according to the traditional rules of religious life, referring to St Benedict and St Francis. A serious obstacle to regulating this issue is the exercise of power. Another reason indicated in the rescript is the personnel situation in religious institutes, which makes it impossible for some members of the clergy to serve as superiors due to age and health status. This fact caused requests to the Holy See seeking permission for non-clerics to exercise the office of superiors. A significant attempt to respond to this need is the rescript announced by Pope Francis. It takes account of the existing legal solutions, as well as opening up a certain window of opportunity as regards changes to the structure of power in clerical institutes.

Crown, Mitre and People in the Nineteenth Century: The Church of England, Establishment and the State. By G. R. Evans

Early nineteenth-century England was a semi-confessional Protestant state in which subjects were expected to conform to the doctrines, worship, and discipline of the Church by law established, but in which there was almost full toleration for those who chose not to conform. The King-in-Parliament was the supreme temporal governor of the established Church of England, while in spiritual matters, the Church was governed by its bishops. The established Church provided religious instruction and pastoral care through a parish system, and religious discipline through a system of ecclesiastical courts. It was supported by tithes on agricultural produce, church rates, church lands, donations, and endowments. It was a national church, expressing the ideal that the state had a responsibility under God to provide religious instruction, observances, and pastoral care to all inhabitants and to act in accordance with divinely-ordained moral law. In this book, G. R. Evans, professor emeritus of medieval theology and intellectual history at the University of Cambridge, explores the semi-confessional state in nineteenth-century England and its complex, multifaceted union of church and state. A trained barrister as well as a respected historian of Christianity, Evans focuses her study on ecclesiastical law. Her book includes some fascinating discussions of the nature and proceedings of the ecclesiastical courts, the personalities and careers of leading ecclesiastical lawyers and judges, and specific legal cases. She also provides a detailed discussion of ecclesiastical legislation in Parliament and of the debates in the Convocations, or consultative assemblies, of the Provinces of Canterbury and York (after those convocations were revived in 1855 and 1861 respectively). As she demonstrates, much of nineteenth-century ecclesiastical law embraced wide areas of English social life, including registration of births, deaths, and marriages, legitimacy and inheritance questions, primary and higher education, blasphemy laws and freedom of speech, doctrinal orthodoxy, clerical discipline, seating in church services, burials, tithes and church rates, church patronage and clerical livings, repair of church buildings, and management of church properties. The union of church and state existed at many levels and affected people’s lives in a myriad of ways.

A Deformed Child and the ‘Fault’ of his Mother: the Monster of Bourges in Gregory of Tours*

Abstract As Gregory of Tours reports (De virtutibus sancti Martini 2.24), in Bourges a child, ‘sinfully’ conceived on a Sunday night and born fearfully deformed, was nevertheless cared for by his mother, who refused to kill it, resisted the derision of neighbors and finally entrusted it to a group of beggars. The story of this monstrum – healed by two miracula performed by Saint Martin – allows us to formulate some reflections on socio-cultural (the connection between morbum and peccatum), economic (poverty, inheritance calculations, family planning), and juridical aspects (the relationship between imperial laws and ecclesiastical legislation) connected with abandonment and/or infanticide which, in always spell out 6th-century Gaul, could be the sad destiny of those with severe psychophysical handicaps.

Digital Scholarship in the Field of Church History

Digital Scholarship in the Field of Church History Laura Morreale, Jennifer Paxton, Joel Kalvesmaki, Jeanne-Nicole Mellon Saint-Laurent, Miri Ribin, and Stephen M. Koeth C.S.C. HMML Authority File. Hill Museum and Manuscript Library. HMML Authority File. 2002. https://haf.vhmml.org. Julia Hillner, Dirk Rohmann, et al. The Migration of Faith: Clerical Exile in Late Antiquity. 2018. https://www.clericalexile.org. Rowan Dorin. Corpus Synodalium: Local Ecclesiastical Legislation in Medieval Europe. 2021. https://www.corpus-synodalium.com. Maria Mazzenga. The American Catholic History Research Center. The Catholic University of America. American Catholic History Classroom. 2022. https://cuomeka.wrlc.org. As we enter the third decade of the twenty-first century, the economy of knowledge exchange is now securely situated in the online medium. As the landscape of academic knowledge sharing continues to shift, scholars now rely upon the online medium in their everyday working lives, even if they do not consider themselves digital scholars. Every time a scholar searches through a database or internet-based catalogue from the library, he or she is entering into a computer-based approach to knowledge acquisition and production. The powers afforded to us by digital tools in turn shape our expectations about how we work; likewise, the more born-digital material we consume, the more likely it is that we will expand upon and express our scholarship in digitally-inflected formats. Online academia has changed how we receive, reuse, and cite scholarship in our own subfields. Nowadays, we are more likely to follow up on a footnote by searching for pdfs in an online library than to spend hours in the periodical reading room of the brick-and-mortar one, searching out those same materials. Additionally, we also rely upon born-digital finding aids, curated online corpora, and even projects that explore a particular research question that might open the door to other avenues of scholarly activity. Electronic communication has transformed how we share knowledge because it is both instantaneous and remains open to ongoing modification. No matter how analogue one’s practice may be, scholarly ideas are now shared, refined, and expressed in a digital world. Like colleagues in all scholarly communities, historians of the Church have witnessed the proliferation of computer-based work, and many have come to depend upon resources and research outputs that are available only in online formats. Although this scholarship does indeed trace its origins to traditional forms of research and learning and shares many of its same motivations, digital work is distinctive in a number of ways. With the power to organize and present large amounts of data, it is also interactive, communal, and team based, and it promotes accessible and open knowledge sharing. Given the importance of digital scholarship, it should [End Page 132] be more fully incorporated into systems of rewarding scholarly productivity, and those who produce it should be granted due recognition. With this in mind, the editorial board of the Catholic Historical Review is adding a review section for born-digital scholarship that addresses the journal’s purview, that is, “the history of the universal Church.” What is digital scholarship?1 Since peer review remains fundamental to all serious intellectual endeavors, the CHR section dedicated to born-digital scholarship both recognizes these newer expressions of knowledge and integrates them within the more traditional format of the scholarly journal review. Digital work is not an either/or proposition. It does not replace previous forms of scholarship, but rather accompanies and relies upon them even as it ushers in and facilitates new ways of considering, aggregating, and analyzing the materials that serve as witness to our collective pasts. Digital scholarship transcends mere digitization or database construction; instead, scholars are now using online tools and resources to study previously unknown or inaccessible materials and to use older sources in ways that were previously unimagined. Like many approaches to scholarship, machine-aided historical analysis has its own backstory. An AHA-sponsored blog post from the early 2000s put forth an early definition of digital history with an emphasis on the analytical possibilities of the medium as well as its power to disseminate information.2 Over time, the origin story of digital history has...

ORTHODOX BROTHERHOODS IN THE KIEV METROPOLIA IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XVI CENTURY: BETWEEN SECULAR LEGISLATION AND CHURCH LAW

The present study is devoted to the analysis of the legal background of the laics associations emergence and activity in the Kiev mitropolia in the second half of the XVI century, including church, parish and “honey” brotherhoods, guilds and collective patrons of orthodox churches. The aim of the work is to assess the nature and degree of secular and ecclesiastical legislation influence on the emergence and methods of legitimization of Orthodox religious associations in the second half of the XVI century. The church brotherhoods of the end of the XVI century were the result of the evolution of traditional territorial unions that arose on the Ukrainian-Belarusian lands even before the adoption of Christianity. The factors of the evolution were the spread and deepening of Christian practices, and later the entry of orthodox lands into the catholic Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Western European legal system assumed the written consolidation of legal customs and legal facts. In the contact orthodox-catholic zone there were closely related catholic professional and religious unions of laypeople, whose statutory documents became models for copying. Finally, the third factor was the influence of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, which provoked an increase in interest in the affairs of religion and the church among the orthodox laics and led to the emergence of church confraternities and confraternal movement. At the same time, the confraternal movement is a purely Orthodox phenomenon. Assessing the discrepancies between the church law norms and the confraternal ideology provisions, it should be emphasized that the confraternities rejected the norms that had the status of church custom, and in some provisions turned out to be closer to the canonical norm than the contemporary practice of the church.

Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages by Elizabeth Makowski

Reviewed by: Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages by Elizabeth Makowski Sr. Nancy Bauer, OSB Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages. By Elizabeth Makowski. Studies in the History of Medieval Religion. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2019. Pp. xiv + 227; $64.00. In her first book, Canon Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and its Commentators, 1298–1545 (CUA Press, 1997), Elizabeth Makowski (1951–2021) made a valuable contribution to the history of canon law regarding religious life for women by providing a comprehensive study of the thirteenth century decree by which Pope Boniface VIII inaugurated what came to be known as papal enclosure for nuns. M., a historian who focused on medieval monastic women, made another contribution to the history of canon law and female religious life in her final book, Apostate Nuns in the Later Middle Ages. The title might suggest that this is just another bawdy recounting of misdeeds of medieval nuns, but such is not the case. This is a scholarly but very readable account of the canonical fates of specific women who attempted to escape a [End Page 212] monastic life for which they were perhaps never suited and often never chose for themselves. M. selected cases that date from 1300 to 1540. The beginning date is significant because by then most of the major ecclesiastical legislation on religious life that remained in effect into the twentieth century had been promulgated. The end date coincides with the dissolution of monasteries under Henry VIII. During this period, the term "apostate" applied canonically to several categories of Catholics, including vowed women and men who, without dispensations, abandoned the religious state to return to secular society. Authorities, ecclesiastical and civil, were expected to capture apostate nuns and monks, who also incurred the penalty of excommunication, and forcibly return them to their monasteries where they endured severe punishment for the crime of running away. The only reprieve from this fate was to prove that one's vows had been coerced and were therefore invalid. Thus, M. devotes the first chapter to the canon law on validity of profession. In the next three chapters, she addresses specific cases of runaway nuns. Chapter 2 deals with nuns who fled their monasteries and then petitioned to have their vows declared null based on vim et metum (force and fear), that is, on having been compelled to enter religious life and make profession. It was not uncommon in the Middle Ages that "the summons to religious life came not from God but from parents, relatives, or other interested parties" (45). For those with a genuine vocation, the monastery was a "safe haven," but for those who were forced into it, "the monastery became a prison" (45). M. uncovers the stories of girls as young as four years old given to monasteries by their parents and coerced to make profession before the canonically recognized minimum age of thirteen, often to exclude them from family inheritance. Chapter 3 deals with nuns who made valid professions, but later fled monastic life "motivated by love, whether of landed wealth or of the opposite sex" (22). In other words, they succumbed to "temptations against the vows of poverty and chastity" (78). Nuns who apostatized for these reasons, even those who married and bore children, were expected to return to monastic life unless they were able to acquire dispensations from their vows. Chapter 4 focuses on nuns who were, with or without permission, away from their monasteries for "diversions" such as pilgrimages and family visits or "disasters" such as war and pestilence, but who failed to return. It was war in the French countryside surrounding their monastery that prompted a group of Cistercian nuns to scatter to safe places in 1368. When they chose to remain in secular life at the end of the war, Pope Urban V ordered their capture and forcible return to their monastery. Chapters 5 and 6 describe the penalties, chilly reception, and difficult reintegration that often awaited apostate nuns who returned to their monasteries, [End Page 213] whether willingly and repentant or forcibly and unrepentant. Historians of canon law will appreciate M.'s review in chapter 5 of commentary by medieval decretists and decretalists...

Hristo Todorov Stoyanov’s Participation in the 1871 First Church National Assembly in Constantinople

The purpose of this study is to present unknown and little known facts about the participation of the Sofia representative Hristo Todorov Stoyanov in the Church National Assembly in 1871. He was one of the most active participants in the discussions on the draft statute for the management and structure of the Bulgarian Exarchate. His legal education, extensive knowledge of ecclesiastical and Ottoman legislation, and personal qualities enabled him to express a competent and reasoned opinion in the disputes and discussions that accompanied all meetings. As an advocate of the democratic views regarding the structure of the Bulgarian Church, Hristo Stoyanov supported the principles of electivity and interchangeability of governing bodies, as well as of active participation of the people in the management of the Bulgarian Exarchate. He demonstrated views and a mindset of a parliamentarian that were modern for his time. The experience he had gained contributed to his future success as a member of the Constituent National Assembly in Veliko Tarnovo, as well as of the First and Second Ordinary National Assemblies. Stoyanov was among the “builders” of Modern Bulgaria. He was also a minister (three times), Chief Public Prosecutor, Chairman of the Supreme Court of Cassation of Bulgaria, a publicist and a respected lecturer at the St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia.

Sex Offenses—Offensive Sex: Some Observations on the Recent Reform of Ecclesiastical Penal Law

In recent years, the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults in the Catholic Church has received much attention. This is also true of the related changes to ecclesiastical legislation. Less attention, however, has been paid to other aspects of the reform. The revised penal law of the Code of Canon Law, in any case, demands closer study from the point of critical legal studies. It is striking that while the reform focused on improving the legal protection of minors, it also had rather detrimental effects on the legal standing of women in the church. Reading the revised law, it appears that the reform missed the chance to improve the legal situation of the mostly female adult victims of clerical sex offenses and abuses of power. It rather spotlighted “female” offenses such as abortion in contrast to typical “male” offenses such as homicide, and it moreover criminalized women who attempt ordination. Thus, the regulations of the reformed penal law not only generally leave the systemic causes of abuse untouched, but also establish norms which reinvent or even exacerbate abusive structures. The latter finally sustain clericalism and reinstitutionalize gender inequality, commonly identified as factors fostering abuse.

Dissolution of marriage during the spousal lifetime in ecclesiastical law

The article examines the concept of dissolution of ecclesiastical marriage according to modern legislation of the Russian Orthodox Church. The author studies the origins of this concept, while special attention is paid to secular law. The grounds of dissolution of ecclesiastical marriage are specifically analyzed. The article studies the historical prerequisites for the formation of the Russian Orthodox Church concept of divorce, which determines the grounds for the termination of ecclesiastical marriage during the life of the spouses. The author comes to the conclusion that the idea of ecclesiastical marriage dissolution is consistent in general with eastern orthodox canonical tradition. The influence of the Russian Orthodox Church’s own tradition is of particular importance for the modern concept. At the same time, there are gaps in the modern provisions of ecclesiastical legislation on marriage; e. g., the legislator does not pay sufficient attention to certain new public life phenomena. In addition, the author notes that current legislation of the Russian Orthodox Church does not introduce an obligation of the laity to dissolve an ecclesiastical marriage in connection with certain circumstances considered in Eastern Orthodox canon law as grounds for divorce. The principle of family law of the Russian Orthodox Church is the protection of marriage.

Lay or Consecrated, Subjected and Subtracted

The present paper provides a comparative analysis of imperial and canonical legislation concerning the abduction of lay or consecrated women in the 4th century, when both legislations delineated the distinctive features of the abovementioned crimen. The imperial law showed both an extreme severity towards abductors and a leniency towards lay and consecrated women, who were considered innocent; however, women were not allowed to live together with their abductors. The canonical legislation also severely punished abductors and considered lay women innocent; however, contrary to the provisions in the civil laws, the ecclesiastical legislation condemned consecrated women who consented to abduction. The paper aims to reconstruct the basic outline of both legislative systems and to identify a set of key features that might describe female submission to both the will of male members of the family and to the provisions in the canonical laws: indeed, the consent to abduction often represented an extreme attempt on the part of women to determine their own lives.

Catechesis and Modern Media: A Focus on Podcasts

Catechesis and Modern Media: A Focus on Podcasts Teofilo Giovan S. Pugeda III (bio) Pope John Paul II described catechesis as an invitation to be in intimate communion with Jesus and, through him, to share in the Trinitarian life.1 Catechesis is, thus, part of the mission of evangelization mandated by Jesus to his apostles. It cultivates faith in the hearts of those who have received and accepted the initial Gospel proclamation in their lives. He added that “catechesis is intimately bound up with the whole of the Church’s life. Not only her geographical extension and numerical increase, but even more, her inner growth and correspondence with God’s plan depend essentially on catechesis.”2 While many people rightly understand catechesis as the education of catechumens on basic Church teachings before their baptism, it can also refer to the lifelong spiritual and intellectual formation of the baptized.3 The Church developed various forms of catechesis according to changes in historical circumstances. By doing so, it used appropriate catechetical tools that delivered the Christian message in a more understandable and accessible manner to those unable to grasp academic explanations of the Church’s doctrines. These catechetical tools also helped integrate the Church’s doctrines into the more concrete realities of people’s lives. Since the ancient period, the Church has used printed works for catechesis. In the contemporary period, it also uses modern media that transmit information through signals. To better understand the relationship between the Church and modern media, this essay [End Page 65] focuses on podcasts by presenting 1) the development of catechesis, 2) Church teachings on modern media, 3) the characteristics of podcasts, and 4) thoughts on using podcasts for catechesis. Although I use the Catholic framework, the insights of this essay may benefit other Christian communities in their catechetical efforts. The Development of Catechesis There was no definitive and regular program of initiation in the first two hundred years of the Church. Christians used faith summaries for the easy socialization of converts into the Church and the legitimation of the faith in the minds of believers.4 By the late second century, a catechumenate institution emerged. The formation process was three years of instruction and conversion from behavior incompatible with the Christian lifestyle, and it culminated with baptism at Easter. The oldest description of this formation process is in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome. Variations did exist from one locale to another.5 At this time, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were major catechetical centers. Early Church fathers provided catechetical foundations to these three cities, with Origen, John Chrysostom, and Cyril of Jerusalem, respectively, giving sermons or lectures there. While in the West, Ambrose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo wrote catechetical works. The early medieval period saw a decline in the catechumenate as fewer adults sought baptism, and the practice of infant baptism grew.6 With the risk of infant mortality, there was greater urgency concerning the reception of baptism. Catechesis gradually shifted from pre-baptism to post-baptism. Parents and godparents would take it upon themselves to educate the children on the faith, assuming they were familiar with Church teachings. Nevertheless, aiding in memorizing the Creed, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary with some basic instruction was often sufficient. The clergy continued to instruct the baptized through [End Page 66] preaching in the liturgy. They sometimes used catechetical handbooks and homilies. Over time, conciliar interventions in the form of ecclesiastical legislation provided organization to the teaching of doctrines and morals. The flourishing of Christian art in the medieval period also played a significant role in communicating the lives of Jesus and the saints to the people. Unfortunately, all these did not prevent the gradual stagnation within the Church. The dire state of the Church at the beginning of the sixteenth century galvanized reformers to re-envision religiosity with greater emphasis on the scriptures.7 This new vision contributed to the emergence of various beliefs. Thanks to the printing innovation of Johannes Gutenberg, reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin disseminated numerous catechisms to advance their theologies. The Church responded by producing catechisms aligned with Catholic doctrines.8 The Society of Jesus...

The social role of Jesuit pharmacies in the former Republic of Poland

The article presents the social role of Jesuit pharmacies in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth based on the sources of religious provenance and inventories of Jesuit colleges drawn up as a result of the dissolution of the Society of Jesus in 1773. In the first part, the author analyzes the ecclesiastical and secular legislation and its impact on the activities of Jesuit pharmacies. Canon law did not forbid clergymen to deal with medicine, but only limited the possibility of obtaining academic education in this field and conducting surgical procedures. By adopting these rules, Jesuit legislation placed the main emphasis on superiors’ control over the finances of pharmacies and limited the sale of drugs to protect the order from being accused of unfair competition by the townspeople. In the context of state pharmaceutical law, the privilege of June 30, 1662, which allowed for the liberation of journeymen by Jesuit pharmacists, was of great importance. In this way, a path of professional education in the field of pharmacy under the management of the Society, an alternative to the guild system, was created. The second part of the article discusses the social factors that favoured the establishment of monastic pharmacies. Particularly noteworthy is the uneven distribution of Jesuit pharmacies in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. While in Royal Prussia the Jesuits did not run pharmacies to avoid conflicts with the Protestant bourgeoisie, in the eastern borderlands of the Polish-Lithuanian state, Jesuit pharmacies were often the only institutions of this type. The third part of the work presents the financial situation of Jesuit pharmacies. They had significant income, but also required considerable investments related to the purchase of raw materials and equipment in the Baltic ports. The fourth part of the article concerns the social scope of the activity of Jesuit pharmacists, who not only provided medicines to the poor, but also treated nobles, magnates and high church dignitaries. Not being obliged by guild regulations, apart from preparing medicines, they also diagnosed them, performed minor surgical procedures and assisted women during childbirth. The last part of the article discusses drugs and raw materials in terms of their availability to the broadly understood clientele. The offer of Jesuit pharmacies included both cheap products derived from the local flora, intended for the treatment of the poor, and expensive raw materials from abroad. Moreover, among the medical matter there were preparations for women and infants, as well as for people suffering from syphilis. In the end, the author emphasizes the centrality of pharmacies in the Jesuit pastoral strategy. Thanks to their high level, pharmacies not only corresponded to the ideal of mercy, but also contributed to gaining the favour and trust of representatives of social elites. In this context, the dissolution of the Society is an important turning point not only in cultural and religious life, but also in the history of medicine and pharmacy in the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Legal Authorities and their Legislative Priorities: The Treatment of Leprosy in the Sources of Canon Law

Abstract This essay considers medieval leprosy in ecclesiastical legislation through the lens of legal pluralism, that is the range of normative orders that are independent from the “state” as a monolithic entity. It focuses on the period between the mid-eleventh and the turn of the fourteenth century marked by efforts at church reform, by the proliferation of leprosaria, and by canonical interest in matrimonial law. It argues that the environment in which various legal authorities worked influenced how they engaged with leprosy. The policies they enacted resulted from a negotiation of their circumstances and needs, which were not necessarily the same. The result was a rich and overlapping legal tradition that, over time, coalesced into a comprehensive legislative policy that both protected the rights of the afflicted as well as the safety of the healthy. The first section of this essay sets forth research on leprosy and the arguments to be pursued. The second section argues that the “old law” in canonical collections used leprosy as an allegory for sin and as a metaphor for simony in pursuit of personal reform and renewal. The third section focuses on the proliferation of leprosaria and argues that the challenge of arranging for pastoral care fell on the shoulders of councils and prelates making policy at the regional or local level. The fourth section argues that the papacy and jurists worked parallel to other legislative bodies. Yet it would be the requests to which the papacy responded and the importance of juridical commentary as a source clarifying the legal ambiguities in these responses that would provide the inroad for the papacy, acting similar to the proverbial “state”, to normalize ecclesiastical life and Christian society.

Apostolic Legates in Poland in the Middle Ages and Their Role in Adopting Particular Ecclesiastical Legislation by the Polish Church – Educational Aspects

The official reception of the conciliar legislation in medieval Poland was greatly influenced by the papal legates, ambassadors endowed with papal authority, who brought conciliar canons to the country ruled at the time by the Piasts and made them public at councils convened with the participation of papal legates, closely monitored the observance of Canon Law and its scope expansion, concurred statutes of Polish provincial and diocesan councils, approved or rejected nominations of bishops, etc. They also acted as intermediaries in personal interventions of popes in their involvement in the functioning of the Church in Poland. Their duties also included inspections in dioceses. Visits of papal legates in Poland were relatively frequent and their main goal was to enforce and implement ecclesiastical reforms in the country. In some instances, a strict relationship between a stay of a papal representative in Poland and the process of the creation and spread of schools is clearly observable. The article examines source accounts concerning the visits of papal legates in Poland, as well as analyses the available statues of legate councils in terms of the provisions included in them regarding education of representatives of the clergy and laymen alike.

Il decennio 1958-1968: un decennio importante per la storia dei rapporti tra Stato e chiese in Italia

SOMMARIO: 1. Premessa: fatti privati ed eventi storici di un decennio importante nella storia italiana - 2. Una tavola rotonda sul decennio 1958-1968 - 3. La disciplina costituzionale sui rapporti tra Stato e confessioni religiose. Un saggio recente sull’art. 7 della costituzione - 4. Nuova attenzione al tema dei rapporti tra Stato e Chiesa cattolica alla fine degli anni Cinquanta - 5. Il processo al Vescovo di Prato - 6. Il concilio Vaticano II e le trasformazioni della societa italiana negli anni sessanta - 7. La morte di Togliatti. Le tendenze della giurisprudenza - 8. Il dibattito culturale e politico sulla riforma della legislazione ecclesiastica. 1958-1968: an important decade in the history of the relationship between “Stato e chiese” in Italy ABSTRACT: Individuals and experiences that, in the years between 1958 and 1968, had an important influence on the civic and political growth of the author. The experience of the participation in a conference on the historical period of the decade from 1958 to 1968. The constitutional provision on relations between the State and the Catholic Church in second post-war Italy, seen in the evaluation of a book published in 2017: critical considerations. New focus was given to the issue of relations between the State and the Catholic Church in the late fifties. The trial of the Bishop of Prato in 1958. The Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965 and the transformation of Italian society in the 1960s. The death of Togliatti on 21st August 1964 and the political consequences for Italy. Tendencies in the jurisprudence on the theme of relations between the state and religious confessions. The cultural and political debate on the reform of ecclesiastical legislation. After 1968, in Italy as in other countries, the phenomenon of extraneousness between the legal state and the real state is highlighted.

Dobro potomstwa w kanonicznym prawie małżeńskim. Próba syntezy

Przeprowadzona analiza ukazuje swoistą ewolucję, jaką na przestrzeni wieków przeszło bonum prolis. Za punkt wyjścia obrano unormowania zawarte w prawie rzymskim oraz tradycji biblijnej. Ponadto w publikacji odwołano się do dorobku wielkich postaci Kościoła, takich jak św. Augustyn i św. Tomasz z Akwinu. To właśnie ten pierwszy wyróżnił w doktrynie o małżeństwie trzy dobra: bonum prolis, bonum fidei oraz bonum sacramenti. Augustyn szczególne miejsce przypisał dobru potomstwa, a to dlatego, że dzięki niemu małżeństwo otrzymuje status środka leczącego namiętności (remedium concupiscentiae). Następnie doktrynę tę podjęła kanonistyka wieków średnich, a jej najwybitniejszym reprezentantem stał się św. Tomasz. Jego zasługą było ustawienie dóbr małżeńskich na płaszczyźnie naturalnej. Według Akwinaty bonum prolis, bonum fidei i bonum sacramenti są dobrami przynależącymi z natury do małżeństwa, a zatem nie potrzebują żadnego, zewnętrznego usprawiedliwienia.Z kolei kodeks prawa kanonicznego z 1917 roku wiązał bonum prolis z ius in corpus (kan. 1081 § 2), które przekazane i przyjęte w akcie zgody małżeńskiej miało charakter dozgonny i ekskluzywny, prokreacyjny i wspólnotowy. Z wszystkich celów małżeństwa to właśnie zrodzenie i wychowanie potomstwa otrzymało pierwszorzędny status, któremu dobro małżonków było podporządkowane. Takie ustawienie boni prolis szybko okazało się niewystarczające, a to dlatego, że nie brało pod uwagę sytuacji, w której małżonkowie posiadali intencję przeciwną zrodzeniu potomstwa (np. zamiar aborcji czy porzucenia dziecka), ale zarazem nie wykluczali prawa do aktów małżeńskich. Rozwiązanie tego problemu przyniosła najpierw encyklika Piusa XI Casti connubii, a następnie doktryna Soboru Watykańskiego II. Ten ostatni w konstytucji Gaudium et spes określił małżeństwo jako intima communitas vitae et amoris coniugalis. W ten sposób nowy kodeks odszedł od czysto cielesnego pojmowania małżeństwa.

The Motu Proprio Magnum Principium on the Edition of Liturgical Books in the Vernacular Languages

The Motu Proprio Magnum Principium on the Edition of Liturgical Books in the Vernacular Languages Maurizio Barba* (bio) On September 3rd, 2017, the memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, pope and doctor of the Church, Pope Francis issued the Motu Proprio Magnum Principium, with the intention of clarifying the competences of the Holy See and of the Episcopal Conferences on the sacred liturgy and, in particular, on the translation of liturgical books into vernacular languages. This is an important and delicate provision with which the supreme legislator makes some changes in ecclesiastical legislation on liturgy. The Motu Proprio, in fact, introduces modifications in canon 838 of the Code of Canon Law, which, in Book IV on the munus sanctificandi of the Church, regulates the discipline of sacred liturgy that falls exclusively under the authority of the Church.1 INCULTURATION AS THE FUNDAMENTAL THEME The principle, already affirmed in Sacrosanctum Concilium,2 according to which the regulation of liturgical discipline belongs [End Page 201] to the hierarchy, is motivated by the very nature of the liturgy: the action of Christ and of the Church, oriented towards the sanctification of the people of God. Precisely because of this specific identity it is not permissible, beyond constituted authority—that is the Apostolic See and the bishops—to add, detract or modify anything from the liturgy approved by the Church out of personal initiative.3 The sanctification of the people of God, the primary objective of the liturgy, accompanies the action whereby the faithful, in response to the divine sanctifying action, render their cult to God. The aim of the liturgy is, therefore, that the holy people of God participate more intensely in the mystery that is celebrated within it; by means of a greater comprehension of the liturgical action (actio liturgica) that takes place with words and actions.4 This objective is achieved through that particular and subtle process of inculturation by means of which "the Church makes the Gospel incarnate in different cultures—and at the same time introduces peoples, together with their cultures, into her own community."5 [End Page 202] From this perspective, inculturation thus has no other ambit than that same one which Vatican II has made the basis of liturgical reform: In this restoration, both texts and rites should be drawn up so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community.6 Such a process of inculturation occurs by safeguarding the substantial unity of the roman rite—expressed in the typical liturgical books authorized by the Supreme Pontiff—and in those corresponding liturgical books that are approved by the Episcopal Conferences for their respective countries and confirmed by the Apostolic See.7 In such a context of adapting the Gospel and the liturgy to the nature and the traditions of various peoples, one does well to understand that . . . the first significant measure of inculturation is the translation of liturgical books into the language of the people. The completion of translations and their revision, where necessary, should be effected according to the directives given by the Holy See on this subject. Different literary genres are to be respected, and the content of the texts of the Latin typical edition is to be preserved; at the same time the translations must be understandable to participants, suitable for proclamation and singing, with appropriate responses and acclamations by the assembly. All peoples, even the most primitive, have a religious language which is suitable for expressing prayer, but liturgical language has its own special [End Page 203] characteristics: It is deeply impregnated by the Bible; certain words in current Latin use (memoria, sacramentum) took on a new meaning in the Christian faith. Certain Christian expressions can be transmitted from one language to another, as has happened in the past, for example in the case of ecclesia, evangelium, baptisma, eucharistia. Moreover, translators must be attentive to the relationship between the text and the liturgical action, aware of the needs of oral communication and sensitive to the literary qualities of the living language of...

Living in Suspicion: Priests and Female Servants in Late Medieval England

AbstractThis article examines ordinary priests in late medieval England who, despite clear guidelines to the contrary, employed and lived with female servants. Ecclesiastical legislation frequently and firmly warned priests against living with women, including servants, because of the potential for sexual temptation, scandal, or both. Historians have long assumed that most clerical households were homosocial, but looking closely at the living arrangements of ordinary parish priests reveals a different story. Evidence from the dioceses of Hereford and Lincoln suggests that elite clerical expectations were often ill-suited to the social and economic realities of parish life, and priests’ living arrangements reflect this incompatibility. Distrust of female clerical servants was heightened during periods of church reform, when these women bore the brunt of both reforming rhetoric and action.

Congregaciones religiosas, educación y escuela en Italia en el siglo XIX

This article traces the origins and development of about 140 new religious male and female congregations, established in Italy during the Nineteenth century. Starting from the Restoration period, the article frames the actions and choices of the new religious congregations with reference to the new scenarios produced by the revolutionary experience and by the changes introduced in ecclesiastical legislation and in the relations between State and Church during the Napoleonic era. At the same time, it deals with the unusual challenges the Church had to face due to both the secularization of mentality and customs and the increased educational needs and welfare of the post-revolutionary period. The author analyses some characteristics of these new religious institutions, most of which chose as privileged —and sometimes exclusive— activity of their apostolate the assistance (of poor and sick people, and of abandoned children and youth), the catechesis and animation of religious life in the parishes and, above all, the education of youth of both sexes and of different social classes. Firstly, the author describes the aspect related to the general adoption of the structure of religious congregations, which provides unequivocal evidence of the prevalence, also on the female side, of the traditional monastic model, of a vocation to religious life understood essentially as an active life devoted to charity, a synthesis between action and prayer, a commitment in the world through the assistance of others. The author’s reconstruction also shows how the idea of charity promoted by the new religious congregations was understood not simply as a commitment to provide assistance, but also, and above all, as an educational responsibility. Indeed, the new religious congregations considered education, school and parish catechesis as the most effective tools for Christians’ education. At the same time, school and education were also seen as the most direct and useful tool for relieving poverty and overcoming the marginalisation of the poorer classes and as the most effective tool for facilitating the successful integration of young working class men and women into society.