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GEORGIA BULLETIN. THURSDAY, JANUARY 23,1969 3
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New Canon Law Seen
As Briefer, More Modern
NEW YORK-The code of canon law now being revised in Rome
will end up being briefer more modern and more effective, in the
opinion of Bishop Ernest J. Primeau of Manchester, N.H.
In a broadcast interview of Guideline (Jan. 19), the chairman of
the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs explained that
canon law is Church law, developed over nearly 2,000 years. He said
Church law was codified in 1917, but that this code is now .50 years
old, and its revision is under way in Rome.
Asked what he thought the
code would be like after revision,
Bishop Primeau said:
“I think that, if 1 read the
minds of the bishops throughout
the world, ultimately they will
have a very important say in the
whole matter, no matter what is
done by the preparatory
commissions and so forth. That
the law will be much briefer, that
it will be more modern and more
effective, that’s really what we’re
looking for.”
Explaining the meaning of
Church law and the operation of
diocesan tribunals, Bishop
Primeau said canon law has a
provision for due process, “but
we feel that it is hard to operate
thd due process we have now.”
“There are all sorts of
suggestions as to how this part of
the law would be changed,” the
bishop continued. “As a matter
of fact we’re making a
.concentrated effort here in the
United States to get expert
opinions on this, and we funnel
these through our canon law
committee to the bishops, and if
they want to they will send them
on to code commission. But
definitely this will take time, of
course. We would like to see a
little experimental work done in
the meantime.”
Asked if some priests are
correct in saying publicly today
that, in a difference with their
bishop, they don’t have recourse
to due process of law, Bishop
Primeau said that, as he
understood what has transpired
in the past, due process of canon
law “has certainly been
followed,” and “one would make
serious mistake if he didn’t
follow it in such a case as this.”
“But this is precisely the
point,” Bishop Primeau
continued. “I think the priests
are claitning that within the
canon law there isn’t that type of
due process that responds to: the
needs of a situation. Now, as a
matter of fact, if you don’t like
what your bishop is doing, there
are certain other ways of
handling it.
“First of all, they’re not
known by the general public,
and, second, they are hard to
manage. But the easiest way
would be to appeal to Rome
because the Pope is the
immediate superior of every
bishop in the world. No other
bishop is superior to one another,
except an auxiliary, but we’re
talking about Ordinaries here, in
their dioceses. And the only
superior the bishop has is the
Pope and the only way of
appealing from the bishop is to
the Holy Father.
“Of course, this again involves
a mechanism that is not too easy
and is prolonged, so they feel
there should be intermediate
steps involving canon law
whereby there would be other
methods of getting what we call
due process.”
Asked about the “rumor going
round” that “if you have enough
money, you can get marriage
cases handled over in Rome,”
Bishop Primeau said such a
statement is “absolutely false.”
He said he was in Rome for 13
years, in an office that handled
three to four thousand marriage
cases a year, and that in at least
half of the some 300 cases
adjudicated by the Roman Rota
in a year, “nobody pay anything.
It’s free.” He noted that some
persons are able to bring lawyers,
which a poor person couldn’t
afford to do, but that happens in
this country and elsewhere too.
Bishop Primeau said every
diocese has a tribunal for
handling marriage cases, but that
smalT dioceses have “relatively
* few cases and of course they have
'small personnel, and because of
this they are not as effective as
we’d like them to .be.’’
“And so, it is being discussed
now,” the bishop continued,
“that we have regional tribunals
rather than have each diocese
with a tribunal; for instance, say
for New England, we have 11
dioceses there.” He explained
that “everybody would give
personnel and whatever was
needed in the tribunal” and all
cases would be handled more
effectively.
Jesuit
Transfer
Father John D. Gerken, S.J.,
theology department chairman at
John Carroll University here, one
of the new theologians in this
area who spoke out publicly
against Pope Paul Vi’s encyclical
Humanae Vitae last year, has
asked for release from teaching
duties because of illness. He will
reside at Gesu parish, an
inner-city church, staffed by the
Jesuits in Detroit.
Father Gerken, 42,
emphasized the transfer was
solely his own doing. He said
there had been no pressure
exerted by the Cleveland dioceseor
by the JCU administration after
his stand on the encyclical became
known.
Receives
Antartic
Award
NORTF. DAME, Ind. (NC)—
Father Theodore M. Hesburgh,
C.S.C., president of the
University of Norte- Dame and a
member of the governing board
of the National Science
Foundation, has been awarded
the Antarctic Service Medal,
given members of U.S.
expeditions to that continent. As
NSF scientific activities
committee chairman, he has
inspected research centers in the
Antarctic.
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