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Canon Law.

Roman Catholics love laws and rules and regulations - after all, we got it from the ancient Romans.  So we are governed by the Commandments, Church law, and tradition - I think that is correct.  I find that very interesting since practices such as abortion and homosexual activity have always been considered evil because they violate both natural and divine law - and therefore civil law.  Western law is based upon Judeo-Christian law, formulated upon the ancient Roman law, which explains why these practices have always been considered evil, therefore sinful - they are against divine and natural law.  (But no longer against civil law.  My apologies for phrasing this so awkwardly.)

Contrary to popular opinion, we can legislate morality.

I believe this is why it has been so very important for dissidents and activists to make certain civil laws are changed, in order that immoral acts once considered illegal should now become legal.  That was the first step, the second is like it, only much more difficult.  The proponents of abortion and homosexual sex desire that divine law/church law be changed to suit them, and of course the Catholic Church remains the only institution left to oppose such a reversal of divine, natural, and civil law.  (Although I ought to mention Sharia law does as well.)  But I digress. 

It’s the law.

I can’t remember what I was looking for in my little book, Code of Canon Law - Annotated, but I got interested in some of the details of various canons.  Of course, while an expert in Canon Law would be the only one qualified to interpret the law, I do think a lay person is able to grasp what the canons decree.   (My copy is a translation of the 6th Spanish language edition - so that means it is translated from Latin, to Spanish, and then English.)  The following are a few canons that caught my attention.

Canon 1369:  A person is to be punished with a just penalty, who, at a public event or assembly, or in a published writing, or by otherwise using the means of social communication, utters blasphemy, or gravely harms public morals, or rails at or excites hatred of or contempt for religion or the Church.  (Bloggers beware!)

Canon 1373:  A person who publicly incites his or her subjects to hatred against the Apostolic See or the Ordinary because of some act of ecclesiastical authority or ministry, or who provoke the subjects to disobedience against them, is to be punished by interdict or other just penalties.  (Dissidents and bloggers beware!)

Canon 265:  Every cleric must be incardinated in a particular Church or personal prelature, or in an institute of consecrated life or a society which has this faculty:  accordingly, acephalous or ‘wandering’ clergy are by no means to be allowed. (Get a real job.)

Canon 271; 2:  A bishop can give permission to his clerics to move to another particular Church for a specified time.  Such permission can be renewed several times, but in such a way that the clerics remain incardinated in their own particular Church, and on returning there enjoy all the rights which they would have had if they had ministered there.

(The following is for Jeron.)

Canon 689; 3:  A religious who becomes insane during the period of temporary vows cannot be dismissed from the institute, even though unable to make a new profession.

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