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Canonist, in L’Osservatore Romano, calls for wholesale ‘synodal’ revision of canon law

July 14, 2025

Writing in the Vatican newspaper, a canon law professor argued for a wholesale “synodal” revision of the Code of Canon Law.

“The future of canon law is synodal,” Luigi Mariano Guzzo of the University of Pisa wrote in his article, entitled “Regolati dall’amore“ [Ruled by love]. Welcoming Pope Francis’s decision to include laity among the voting members of the synod on synodality, Guzzo said that “there is still work to be done on quotas, i.e., numbers, as bishops—and therefore men—have established themselves in a clear majority. However, a step forward has been made in promoting a more widespread culture of participation in the ecclesial community.”

Calling for changes to canon law that extend far beyond a codification of recent synodal practice, Guzzo said that

first of all, a reflection on the general structure of the Catholic Church’s order is essential. In particular, we must ask ourselves how to reinterpret the individual positions of the faithful in light of the modern notion of subjective rights ...Canon 96 of the Latin Code places duties before rights, while it is now time to find ways and means to establish a true “age of rights” in the canonical system, without distorting its spiritual and otherworldly function.

We need to start changing the language: the term “subject” appears more than thirty times in the Latin Code to indicate, for example, both the faithful in relation to the authority of pastors and consecrated persons in relation to the authority of their superiors. But it is clear that the medieval-flavored concept of “subject” is as far removed as possible from the conciliar (or rather, evangelical) idea of a people journeying to build a Kingdom of justice, peace, and love.

“It is necessary to rethink—even from an ecumenical perspective—the ministry of the Bishop of Rome, the dialectic between the universal Church and the particular Church, the relationship between the power of orders and the power of jurisdiction, the presence of lay men and women in decision-making moments in the life of the ecclesial community, and equal ministry,” Guzzo added. “All of this entails ‘declericalizing’ canon law, to define a legal framework that allows the development of the personality of women and men.”

Guzzo concluded:

Canon law, no longer a functional device for maintaining a “hierarchical” society, must return to the strongly charismatic and participatory role it had in regulating the first Christian communities. This does not mean less law, but rather having the courage to write, and rewrite, a “new” law in which legal relations are characterized by evangelical charity, that is, by love.

This is not a utopia. It is, simply, the Gospel. And it is the future that awaits us.

 


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  • Posted by: Randal Mandock - Today 9:53 AM ET USA

    I suggest that the charismatic movement does not encompass the majority of practitioners of Catholicism. To "convert" the entire Church to the charismatic movement would thus be problematic for the majority who would find themselves at the margins of the "reformed" practice of the faith. The hierarchical roots of the Church go back to the beginning, when the Logos guided the Patriarchs and their successors down until the Apostolic age. The Apostolic and Patristic Church was hierarchical.

  • Posted by: Crusader - Today 9:48 AM ET USA

    To what ever extent Canon Law might need some revision I would hope that this professor is not involved since he is advocating a Synodal Canon Law.