St Francis de Sales & St Mary Magdalene

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Canon Law or Canonical Theology?

The question posed by Anonymous from Northampton:

What Does a Theology of Law Mean for the Specificity of Canon Law?

Canon Law is a field of theological reflection that was initiated by Jesus in the gospels, just as we read in Matthew 18, where Jesus introduces a series of procedural rules of appeal and recourse to follow when addressing an issue in the community. So it is a field of theology primarily and then secondarily of a unique kind of law, which in the gospel community is a more humane subspecies of the genre than say ordinary penalty-conscious civil laws. The christian law corpus is more nuanced and evinces a more compassion focused ministry. CFM - compassion focus ministry, that is the unique contribution of the canon law system.