Library of Congress Religious Law Classification Schedules: Elegant, Flexible and User-Friendly

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 488-496 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Diamond

The Library of Congress recently issued new classification schedules for the law of the Roman Catholic Church and for the History of Canon Law. The schedules were developed by Dr. Jolande E. Goldberg of the Library of Congress with input from librarians and scholars from many countries. During the final months of their development, we spoke, individually and together, to several groups of librarians to introduce them to the elegant structure of these forthcoming schedules and to get reaction from librarians who had, and had not been, involved earlier in the development process. My role was to provide some context to the content of the schedules. I discussed the concept of religious law for purposes of these schedules and introduced the historical development of religious law, particularly that of the Roman Catholic Church.

Author(s):  
Belinda Jack

Censorship, book burnings, and secret reading highlight the relationship between reading and power, and hence the relationship between limiting access to reading and political control. But from the very beginning there have been dissidents who refused to give up the intellectual freedom provided by their reading in the face of despotic regimes. ‘Forbidden reading’ considers the history of book burnings undertaken by repressive political regimes, religious authorities, and maverick leaders. It also discusses the Inquisitions and indexes of banned books first led by the Roman Catholic Church, but then later by other religions. Finally, it looks at different forms of censorship, including press censorship during times of war, censorship of ‘undesirable’ content, and self-censorship.


2014 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 319-334
Author(s):  
Peter McCullough

This article aims to provide an introductory historical sketch of the origins of the Church of England as a background for canon law in the present-day Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. Written by a specialist for non-specialists, it summarises the widely held view among ecclesiastical historians that if the Church of England could ever be said to have had a ‘normative’ period, it is not to be found in its formative years in the middle decades of the sixteenth century, and that, in particular, the origins of the Church of England and of what we now call ‘Anglicanism’ are not the same thing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 270-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick S Nash

Abstract This article explores whether the Roman Catholic Church’s response to the clergy child sex abuse scandal shields it from further charges of improper handling of cases. It begins by noting the current topicality of institutionalized abuse and how several high-profile public inquiries have recently been established to investigate child sex abuse across a range of secular and religious organizational settings. Although numerous religious institutions have become embroiled in clergy child abuse crises, the Catholic Church has come in for particular scrutiny and condemnation on account of its distinctive institutional characteristics which have exacerbated its own abuse scandal in a uniquely severe way. The Church’s own understanding of this issue is that a culture of antinomianism has taken root within the clerical hierarchy and that, were canon law to be applied properly, the crisis would be resolved. This contrasts quite dramatically with the typical external understanding of the crisis which sees the canonical legal system as part of the problem, namely the Church’s refusal to cooperate fully with the secular criminal justice system and effective assumption of a criminal jurisdiction of its own. The article concludes with a final prognosis of the prospects of fundamental legal and cultural change.


Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 517
Author(s):  
Kim de Wildt

The decrease in people who regularly celebrate liturgy in western Europe has led to the question of what to do with so-called obsolete church buildings. This question not only refers to whether or not a church building will be converted, reused or demolished, but also to the question of whether or not such a building needs to be deconsecrated, and if so, what does deconsecration of a church building actually entail? In this contribution, I will consider the role deconsecration rites play in the Roman Catholic church when a church building is taken out of liturgical use. In Roman Catholic liturgy, there are no prescribed, official deconsecration rites that are mandatory for a church building that is to be taken out of liturgical use. The actual deconsecration of a church building is, according to canon law, established by a decree that is issued by the responsible diocesan bishop. In the case of a church being taken out of liturgical use, however, there seems to be a shift from having a ritual void with regard to deconsecration rites, and also a focus on the “legitimate” way (in the sense of canon law) to deconsecrate a church building (object orientation), towards, in recent decades, paying more attention to a growing pastoral need (subject orientation) for deconsecration rites. These new ritual initiatives can be regarded as forms of pastoral care intended to help parishioners cope with the loss of their church building. I will show that different interpretations of canon law articles complicate straightforward answers to the question of which arguments are legitimate to deconsecrate a church. Furthermore, I will address the “ritual muddle”, the mixture of the actual deconsecration act in the sense of canon law and deconsecration rites that, from the perspective of canon law, do not effect church deconsecration. I will also address the differentiation between desecration and deconsecration, address historical forms of deconsecration rites and pay attention to the making and unmaking of sacred space. Finally, I will focus on contemporary deconsecration rites against the background of the complex reality in which such rites are situated.


1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (25) ◽  
pp. 284-285
Author(s):  
Robert Ombresop

The organisation now known as the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland was founded in 1957, and its Newsletter was first published in 1969. The activities, publications and achievements of the Society within the Roman Catholic Church are manifold, and were acknowledged by Pope John Paul II when he granted an audience to participants of the 1992 annual conference held in Rome. This papal address is printed at the beginning of The Canon Law: Letter & Spirit (London 1995), the full commentary on the 1983 Code of Canon Law prepared by the Society.


1969 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-53 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert L. Michaels

The man of the Revolution disputed the very nature of Mexico with the Roman Catholic. The revolutionary, whether Callista or Cardenista, believed that the church had had a pernicious influence on the history of Mexico. He claimed that Mexico could not become a modern nation until the government had eradicated all the influence of the Roman Catholic Church. The Catholic, on the other hand, was convinced that his religion was the basis of Mexico's nationality. Above all, the Catholic believed that Mexico needed a system of order. He was convinced that his faith had brought order and peace to Mexico in the colonial period, and as the faith declined, Mexico degenerated into anarchy.


Horizons ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 420-424
Author(s):  
Carter Lindberg

I am honored to participate in this theological roundtable on the five-hundredth anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. I do so as a lay Lutheran church historian. In spite of the editors’ “prompts,” the topic reminds me of that apocryphal final exam question: “Give a history of the universe with a couple of examples.” “What do we think are the possibilities for individual and ecclesial ecumenism between Protestants and Catholics? What are the possibilities for common prayer, shared worship, preaching the gospel, church union, and dialogue with those who are religiously unaffiliated? Why should we commemorate or celebrate this anniversary?” Each “prompt” warrants a few bookshelves of response. The “Protestant Reformation” itself is multivalent. The term “Protestant” derives from the 1529 Diet of Speyer where the evangelical estates responded to the imperial mandate to enforce the Edict of Worms outlawing them. Their response, Protestatio, “testified” or “witnessed to” (pro testari) the evangelical estates’ commitment to the gospel in the face of political coercion (see Acts 5:29). It was not a protest against the Roman Catholic Church and its doctrine. Unfortunately, “Protestant” quickly became a pejorative name and then facilitated an elastic “enemies list.” “Reformation,” traditionally associated with Luther's “Ninety-Five Theses” (1517, hence the five-hundredth anniversary), also encompasses many historical and theological interpretations. Perhaps the Roundtable title reflects the effort in From Conflict to Communion: Lutheran-Catholic Common Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017 (2013) to distinguish Luther's reformational concern from the long historical Reformation (Protestantism), so that this anniversary may be both “celebrated” and self-critically “commemorated.”


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Grace T. Betsayda

This paper investigates the role that the Roman Catholic church has played in the socialization of Filipinos in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The research is based on scholarly acknowledgment of the important place of social institutions—such as churches, synagogues, mosques, temples and other places for religious and faith-based gatherings—in the settlement and integration experiences of immigrants. The paper argues that Roman Catholicism, first introduced into the Philippines via Spanish colonization, has become an important marker of identity for many Filipinos and has functioned—aided by their facility in the English language (a result of American colonization of the Philippines)—as a means of easing the barriers to Filipinos’ integration into Canada. To better analyze the role the Roman Catholic church has played in Filipino-Canadian immigrant life, the study provides an overview of the history of migration to Canada and discusses the place of the church as seen from the perspective of representatives of diasporic, transnational and second generation communities of Filipinos in Canada. As such, the main data for the study is drawn primary material comprising interviews with Filipino-Canadians from each of these community groups.


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