Church Office Meeting (Continued)

Observation March 18th - 3:30pm - 5:30pm (Entry 8)

The last thing discussed today was what is Canon Law. In short,
church law, but what does that mean? A canon, is a list or measure of
something, and the actual Latin phrase for Canon Law is Codex Iuris
Canonici. The Codex is an incredibly long list of laws that have been
made, added, and edited since the origin of the Catholic Church. Just
as the government has its constitution, so does the church.
This is the type of law applied in the tribunal, where Father
Winslow works for the Bishop. The tribunal is the court for church
matters only; if an issue happens that violates a state or federal law
then of course they step back and let that body of government handle
it. Most of the time the court deals with marriage cases, and whether
or not a case is worthy of an annulment, and whether the laws of
matrimony were broken, or even fulfilled to begin with. The entire list
of laws runs about 1,752 Canons long, and there are different sections.
Some apply to marriage, some to financial issues, and to just about
any and everything that has been thought of over the past thousands
of years. To put it into perspective, this legal system is very similar to
that of Louisiana. So along with being canonized a Catholic Pastor, he
is also a Canon Lawyer, a man of many attributes. I had never
imagined how extensive and how much the church actually had laws
and grounds for. Although not as harsh as some punishments from our

American legal system, the Codex even lists punishments appropriate

for each offense. It is incredibly extensive, and defines the governing
body of the church as a whole.