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Catholic World News News Feature

Pope emphasizes consistent application of canon law January 28, 2008

Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the officials of the Roman Rota to work "with an ever deeper ecclesial sense of justice," as he addressed the members of the tribunal at the start of a new judicial year.

The Pope took note of the fact that the Roman Rota is marking the 100th anniversary of Sapienti Consilio, the apostolic constitution by Pope St. Pius X reforming the tribunal. That anniversary, he said, offers an opportunity to reflect on the proper understanding of canon law, which is designed for "the protection of everything that is shared by the universal Church."

The administration of canon law, the Pope said, should be guided by a search for truth, sensitive to both the particularities of the individual case and the universality of Church norms. He cautioned against the tendency to develop a sensim sine senu, in which local tribunals pursue their own norms, different from those of the universal Church. The Pope said that this tendency toward differences among canonical tribunals should be resisted-- especially at the level of the Roman Rota, which serves to reinforce the common standards that maintain unity within the Church.

Pope Benedict suggested that the drift toward different standards in Church law can be seen in cases involving marriage, in which local tribunals can grow "ever more distant from the common interpretation of positive laws and even from Church doctrine on matrimony."