Code of Canon Law | Catholic Church, Ecclesiastical Law & Papal Authority (2024)

Code of Canon Law, official compilation of ecclesiastical law promulgated in 1917 and again, in revised form, in 1983, for Roman Catholics of the Latin rite. The code obliges Roman Catholics of Eastern rites only when it specifically refers to them or clearly applies to all Roman Catholics.

For centuries following the Council of Trent (1545–63), the need for a codification of the disciplinary law of the church had been recognized, but not until 1904 was a plan put forth. On March 19 of that year, Pope Pius X announced his plan of procedure and appointed a commission of cardinals under the presidency of Pietro (later Cardinal) Gasparri to supervise the work. All Roman Catholic bishops, superiors of religious orders, and faculties of Roman Catholic universities were invited to collaborate. Pope Benedict XV promulgated the first code on Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 1917. The new code replaced the Corpus Juris Canonici (“Corpus of Canon Law”), an earlier compilation of church law that had been in force since the Middle Ages.

The new Code of Canon Law was a systematic arrangement of the ecclesiastical law then in force. This legislation was set forth in 2,414 canons, or norms, that were organized under topical headings in five books. Some 26,000 citations of prior church legislation were listed, including approximately 8,400 from the Decretum Gratiani (“Decree of Gratian”), a 12th-century collection; 1,200 from general councils of the church; 4,000 from papal legislation; 11,200 from the norms of Roman congregations (the administrative bodies of the Roman Curia); and 800 from liturgical books. Between 1923 and 1939 Cardinal Gasparri and Jusztinian Serédi, a Hungarian canonist and the archbishop of Esztergom, published nine volumes of the sources of the code under the title Fontes Juris Canonici (“Sources of the Code of Canon Law”).

After the promulgation of the first code, a great mass of ecclesiastical legislation, published periodically in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis (“Acts of the Apostolic See”), began to accumulate, and the need for revision became clear. On Jan. 25, 1959, Pope John XXIII established a papal commission of cardinals and experts to undertake a new revision of the code. On Jan. 25, 1983, Pope John Paul II signed the second Code of Canon Law, to take effect on Nov. 27, 1983. This second code superseded the first one.

The second code, written in Latin, consists of 1,752 canons organized into 7 books. Books I and II define the positions and responsibilities of both the laity and the clergy; Book III deals with the promulgation of the church, including the subjects of teaching, preaching, and the church’s relations with the media; Book IV contains guidelines for the administration of the sacraments, with the greatest emphasis on the sacrament of marriage; Book V concerns the church’s handling of money, property, and other temporal goods; Book VI deals with sanctions, reducing the number of excommunicable actions from 37 to 7; and Book VII provides a structure for the establishment of church courts and the settlement of internal disputes.

A chief element of the second code is the definition of the church as “the people of God” rather than as an institution.