All the structures of the Catholic Church, including tribunals and faculties of canon law, must undergo a “pastoral and missionary conversion” to ensure the church is giving the world “the only thing it needs: the Gospel of the mercy of Jesus,” Pope Francis wrote.
“To be pastoral does not mean that the norms should be set aside, and one sets off in whatever direction one wishes, but that in applying the norms one should make certain that the Christian faithful find in them the presence of the merciful Jesus, who does not condemn but exhorts them to sin no more because he gives grace,” the pope wrote to an international group of canon law scholars.
Pope Francis made his remarks in a message to the “Consociatio Internationalis Studio Iuris Canonici Promovendo” (literally translated as the international association for promoting the study of canon law), which was celebrating its 50th anniversary with a conference in Rome on 1st December.
When canon law is an instrument of mercy, the pope wrote, “even when a severe sanction is to be applied to one who has committed a very serious crime, the Church, which is mother, will offer him the help and spiritual support that is indispensable so that in repentance he may encounter the merciful face of the Father.”
Picture: Code of Canon Law books for the Latin and Eastern Catholic churches are pictured in Rome at the Pontifical Oriental Institute. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)