What is canon law? Bishop Paprocki explains
The recent death of Pope Francis—and the subsequent election of his successor, Pope Leo XIV—cast a bright light on the centuries-old inner workings of the Catholic Church.
Canon law is the body of norms and regulations that govern these inner workings, including its structure, the duties of its clergy and its disputes. These have been compiled since at least the Middle Ages and were later codified into the Code of Canon Law. Pope Leo XIV himself has a JCD, a doctorate of canon law.
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois has unique insight into canon law. After graduating from the DePaul University College of Law and being admitted to the Illinois bar in 1981, he completed his postgraduate studies in canon law at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
Paprocki has worked as both a canon and civil lawyer. At the Loyola University Chicago School of Law, he taught a course on canon law for civil lawyers. He talked to the ABA Journal this week about canon law, how it works and how it differs from civil law. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you become involved in canon law?
I was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago and entered high school seminary at an early age. I studied for priesthood in high school, college and graduate school. And after I was ordained a priest, as I was working in a parish in South Chicago, St. Michael parish, I went to law school. I was interested in helping the poor, and so I co-founded the South Chicago Legal Clinic, which is now known as the Greater Chicago Legal Clinic. The archbishop at the time was Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, and he asked me to help at the chancellor’s office. I was vice-chancellor in 1985, and after a couple years, he said, “Well, you’re actually doing more canon law work than civil law.” He sent me off to Rome, and I got my initial degree in canon law.
It’s called a licentiate, or a license, in canon law. And some canon lawyers, that’s as far as they go with their canon law degree. I also went on and got a doctorate. The initials for doctorate in canon law would be JCD, Juris Canonici Doctor. I came back, and I was chancellor of the Archdiocese of Chicago, first under Cardinal Bernardin until he died and then under Cardinal Francis George. My work as chancellor basically was to be the canon law adviser to the cardinal and to the agencies and parishes of the archdiocese.
So, similar to going to law school and becoming a civil lawyer, you get a canon law degree. There are a limited number of places where you can do that. There’s only one in the United States. The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., offers the canon degrees. And then Saint Paul University in Ottawa, Canada, has canon law.
There are several in Rome. I went to the Pontifical Gregorian University, which is sponsored by the Jesuits. And there’s also the [Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas], sometimes known as the Angelicum. Our new pope, Pope Leo XIV, he went to the University of Saint Thomas in Rome. That’s where he got his doctorate in canon law.
Once you had your doctorate in canon law, what were some of your responsibilities when you worked as a chancellor?
Canon law is basically the policies and procedures, you might say, for the Catholic Church. So, every organization has bylaws that govern how the organization is to be run. The church is more than just a corporation. It models in many ways a civil government, in terms of having executive, legislative and judicial branches. In the church, those are basically centered in one person. The pope would be the legislator, the executive and the judicial for the universal church throughout the world. And in every diocese, you’d have the executive, judicial and legislative in the person who is the bishop.
However, in practice, that is often divided. So the executive branch, for example, would be the administration of a diocese or archdiocese. And by the way, archdiocese is just another name for a large diocese. Offices like the vicar general, the chancellor, the finance officer, personnel, human resources would be under the executive branch.
The legislative is really the bishop himself or the pope in the universal church, and he would do any legislation. The code of canon law, that’s called the universal law of the church. If a bishop promulgates a law for his diocese, it’s called particular law. And in the formulation of particular law, a bishop would consult with different groups like a diocesan pastoral council of mostly laypeople or a presbyteral council, which is a council of priests.
And then the judicial branch is in the church called the tribunal. In most dioceses, the tribunal handles marriage annulment cases. The majority of canon lawyers working in the United States would be working in tribunals handling marriage annulments, or declarations of nullity is what they’re technically called.
Pope Leo XIV earned his JCD at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)How do you describe canon law?
There’s a code of canon law that was promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1983. That’s the most recent code of canon law. Prior to that, it was a 1917 code. So it doesn’t get changed often. [The Western Catholic Church is] operating under the 1983 Code of Canon Law, although Pope Francis did some revisions of that. The biggest change by Pope Francis was in Book VI, which is the penal sanctions in the church.
Basically, there are seven books in the code of canon law. The first book is on general norms, the principles of canon law.
Book II is called “The People of God,” and that would be what in a corporation you might call your human resources level. It’s the laws that deal with the formation or training of seminarians, priests, religious communities.
Book III is on the teaching function of the church. That would be the laws dealing with Catholic schools, Catholic colleges and universities. Missionary work, anything having to do with preaching, spreading the word, is in Book III.
Book IV is the sanctifying function of the church. That would govern the seven sacraments and the requirements. For example, what are the requirements for getting married in the church? That would also have the canons dealing with declarations of nullity, or annulments.
Book V is called “The Temporal Goods of the Church.” When we talk about temporal goods, we’re talking basically administration. So acquiring property, administering organizations like parishes and dioceses, contracts. The financial aspects of the church would come under Book V.
Book VI would be the penal sanctions, which would be penalties like excommunication. What are the grounds for somebody being excommunicated from the church? There are other lesser penalties. Sometimes a person may be given a reprimand for having done something wrong.
And then Book VII is other processes or procedures. That basically governs, for example, in the tribunals, if someone applies for a declaration of nullity, the processes for dealing with such cases. So that’s the basic outline of the Code of Canon Law as it’s used today.
If a diocese or archdiocese promulgates their own rules, are those added to this book too, or are those found somewhere else?
It’s both. What I’ve just described to you, the Code of Canon Law, would be what we call the universal law of the church. That governs the Catholic Church throughout the world, and that’s promulgated by the pope. What I referred to earlier as particular law would be what a bishop would do in his diocese. A bishop can have local laws as long as they don’t contradict the universal law. So for example, under human resources, we might have more strict requirements in terms of background checks or screening. It’s a little more specific than the universal law would be, perhaps. So you have both universal law and then the particular laws in a diocese.
Being a civil lawyer, has that impacted your work as a canon lawyer or benefited it in any way?
It has benefited me since I studied civil law first. I think that helped when I went into canon law, to already have the basis for legal thinking, in terms of the logic that’s involved and dealing with law and deducing principles.
The main difference for us in the United States between canon law and civil law is that civil law follows the common law system of English-speaking countries. So Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand—we all had to take the common law approach that we inherited from England, which is basically caselaw. When you study in law school for a civil law degree, you’re basically studying, in the United States, Supreme Court cases, by and large. You’re learning the law by studying caselaw.
Canon law, in contrast, follows more the system of the Napoleonic Codes of Europe. It’s more of a codified law. What I just described to you, those seven books, a canon lawyer looking for what is the law about something would look to those. The word canon comes from a Greek word which basically just means rule. And so a canon lawyer will look up the rules. “What does a canon say about this?”
There is some reference occasionally to decisions, like if a court in Rome hands down a decision. That will provide guidance, but it doesn’t necessarily set a precedent. Say, “Oh, well, the Vatican issued a case that said this, therefore we have to follow that.” It’s not the same as when the U.S. Supreme Court issues a decision and that sets the precedent for the lower courts.
Another difference, so as a student when I was studying canon law, it was taught in Latin. That was a bit of a challenge. Latin still is the official language of the code.
As you mentioned, we recently had the election of a new pope. The rules for the conclave, are those found in the Code of Canon Law?
Oh, no, that’s a good question. There are laws that are outside of the Code of Canon Law. That would be an example. The laws for the regulation of a conclave, that would be a special law. Almost every pope, it seems, recently, has done some revision on that. You’d have to look that up specifically. There’s also another branch called liturgical law. There are the laws that guide the proper way to celebrate mass and the sacraments. Some of that is in the code, in Book IV that I mentioned, but some would be in the missals the priest uses at Mass.
In your role now, how much do you use canon law?
Oh, quite a bit. As the bishop of the diocese, I’m basically the—to use corporate terminology—chief executive officer for the diocese. I have canon lawyers that work for me and advise me on different things, and I have to follow canon law in the governance of the diocese. Many bishops are canon lawyers because you’re governing a diocese. I’m not handling particular cases as I used to, maybe, when I was a chancellor or helping with the tribunal.
In the case of Pope Leo XIV, our new pope, his doctorate was on the role of the prior. The prior is like the superior of an order. He belongs to the Augustinian order, and so his doctoral thesis was on the role of the local prior … and how to govern communities. The different religious communities, like the Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, they all have their own particular law called a constitution. And so basically the prior governs the community according to their local laws.
Is there anything else you think a civil lawyer should know about canon law?
There are some areas of overlap. Let’s say you’re a civil lawyer and you’re handling a real estate matter. Maybe even you’re the civil lawyer representing a diocese, and the diocese wants to sell a piece of property. All right, so as a civil lawyer, you have to follow the laws on real estate transactions. But there are also laws within the Catholic Church that would be in Book V on temporal goods. If I want to sell something here in the diocese over a certain dollar amount, I actually need to get permission from the Vatican.
What I tell civil lawyers, when teaching a course like canon law for civil lawyers, is I’m not training you how to be a canon lawyer. There’s a whole different degree program for that, that I described earlier. But you should be aware of some things. So the example I just gave you, if you’re representing a diocese on a real estate transaction, you should at least have a red flag go up and say, “You know what? I’m aware that there are some requirements in canon law.” And before you do the closing of this real estate transaction, you better get yourself a canon lawyer and make sure you’ve dotted all those I’s and crossed those T’s as well.
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