The purpose of this blog

Yes, I've already got a heapin' handful of other blogs, so why start another one? Well, my blogs are mostly just niche projects to help me focus on small aspects of life. I have one blog about my ignorance. I have another for my church's lectionary schedule. Then I have a couple blogs to help me improve my Chinese and maintain my German, respectively. And now I have this blog to work my way ever so mildly into canon law, and perhaps law in general.

Since I became a Catholic (Easter 2004), my sense of being a social being has spiked. Many non-Catholics see "church law" as an oxymoron, codified pharisaism, the traditions of men and all the rest. They tend to wag a pious finger at "law," insisting true Christian faith is about a relationship, not laws. All the while they wag the finger, however, they forget just what real relationships are like. Real relationships, like it or not, have boundaries, dos and don'ts, parameters, conditions, etc. In fact, the best relationships thrive on a symbiosis with rules. Parents and children have a relationship – but they also have rules to run the house (chores, duties, limits, penalties, rewards, etc.). Without laws, relationships tend to evaporate into collision-free "cohabitation." Laws ensure free floating bodies bump into each again and again, on even the minutest issues, and precisely thus deepen the relationships. Without a common law (in a household, a society, or a Church), people rapidly withdraw into a "legislative solipsism," muttering things about I'm okay, you're okay, and you do things your way and I’ll do them mine. Meanwhile, relationships wither and die.

I have increasingly come to see that insofar as humans are social beings and insofar as this social dimension is transfigured and elevated in redemption, then the Church as a transcendent but fully "terrestrial" organism carries within it all the tensions and structures of social life. Being spiritual, far from being ruggedly individualistic, consists mostly in being social. Liturgy, after all, means "the public [or people's] work." God, after all, is a perfect triune "society" of the three free divine Persons. Hence, we are social because God Himself is. And law is none other than the means and ways by which social beings live socially and, hopefully, sociably. The point is that once I stopped seeing law as a dry, arid field of casuistry and have started to see it is an intricate code of human co-existence -- a living legacy of human social interaction -- then my interest was piqued.

Further, as I have gotten older, I've realized the title of this blog is all too painfully true: 法律只保護懂法律的人 (Fǎlǜ zhǐ bǎohù dǒngfǎlǜde rén), "Law protects only those who understand it." I've made a lot of mistakes and missed some good opportunities because I don't understand law (not to mention also having a frail grasp on finance and economics). And I don't understand law mainly because I've buried my head in the sand about it, (mis)taking it for an enormous bout of arid casuistry. But as I mature as a Catholic, I've come to realize knowing the law is empowering.

Just over a year ago, I was in Cologne, Germany volunteering for World Youth Day. It was the Feast of the Assumption (August 15) and a solemnity for Catholics. But seeing as I and my fellow volunteers had to hoof it to an event far from any of the beautiful old churches (or any church for that matter), we feared missing the Mass. The day was melting into evening and soon our opportunities for any Mass would be gone. Then again, if we attended a Mass at its normal time, we'd be late for our volunteer duty, which none of us wanted to do, lest we scandalize others by our youthful waywardness. Finally, a young Dominican priest heard our situation, heeded our pleas for the Eucharist and, sighing, said, "I have to give you the Eucharist. It's your right as Catholics." It's your right as Catholics.

Then we all proceeded downstairs to the centuries-old catacombs for, literally, a three-minute Mass, consisting mainly of an opening prayer, the consecration, and a benediction. It was exhilarating enough to worship, as if under persecution, in the catacombs with our "sleeping" Catholics brethren. But what really hit me -- what in fact totally transformed my awareness as a Catholic -- was the priest's mention of his obligation to minister to us since it was our right to worship. It – receiving God Himself in the Eucharist – is your right as Catholics. Talk about rights! In that one sentence, my whole view of life shifted; a mighty seed was planted, and I stood a little taller suddenly knowing I had and have concrete inviolable rights as a son of God.

From that day forth, knowing I live in a fully functioning Christian society within society at large (i.e., the Catholic Church) is extremely empowering. Liberating, in fact. Virtually all Christians emphasize our sonship and daughterhood in Christ, as "sons in the Son." But without something immediate, specific and very concrete (i.e., canon law), such frilly talk too easily remains just that – frilly words. So few non-Catholic Christians think about, much less lay claim to, their rights in the Christian life because, as a rule, their church quite simply has no laws for them to claim, leaving them nothing concrete by which to articulate, much less to protect, their Christian rights. It's only that much more disheartening to realize how ignorant many (and I dare say most) Catholics are about their canonical rights and obligations – despite the wealth of pastoral guidance to be found in the CIC (Codex Iuris Canonici, Code of Canon Law). As a result, whether through a paucity of Christian law (and lawfulness in general) outside the Catholic Church, or through ignorance of it within, Christian rights end up just floating away like tinsel into the mists of waxy proverbs and fitful slogans. Without the liberating knowledge of Christian law, relationships go awry or shrink within themselves just as they would in a family without rules or a garden without hedging (an on the importance of "godly hedging", see John 15:1ff). Fortunately, however, the scaffolding of canon law (mundane though it may seem to the more intuitively and fashionably "spiritual") gives relationships and Christian rights secure footing to flourish, like vines on a trellis warmed by the sun of the Gospel.

Frankly, seeing the concrete provisions and considerations the Church spells out on the whole range of life in the Church, and thus life in the world, warms my heart, giving a vivid reality to the idea of being a citizen in a kingdom. At its most basic level, every canon of the CIC is a fruit of countless priests, bishops, popes and concerned articulate laity trying to apply the Gospel to every nook and cranny of the Christian life. The CIC is a tangible proof of the Church's at first apparently scrupulous but finally evidently humane diligence for Christians of every vocation. And what motivates this diligence? The knowledge that a kingdom without royal law is effectively just a kingdom without a king.

Let me quote a few sources I think express better than I can why I have rather suddenly been caught up in canon law. Ed Peters, a canon lawyer and seminary professor, introduces his canon law website with these words:

Canon Law, the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the western world, is the internal legal system of the Catholic Church. It affects virtually every aspect of the faith life of some one billion Catholic Christians throughout the world. But, as Pope John Paul II explained when he signed the 1983 Code into law, canon law "is in no way intended as a substitute for faith, grace, charisms, and especially charity in the life of the Church and of the faithful. On the contrary, its purpose is rather to create such an order in the ecclesial society that, while assigning the primacy love, grace, and charisms, it at the same time renders their organic development easier in the life of both the ecclesial society and the individual persons who belong to it." See ap. con. Sacrae disciplinae leges, para.16.

In his book Why Do Catholics Do That?, Kevin O. Johnson, himself once a member of the Canon Law Society of America, explains:

Canon law gives guidelines for actions, not for beliefs. It has to do with the management of the institutional Church, not with faith and morals. … [C]anon law as such confines itself to what you call the discipline of the community of the faithful in its public life. … Canon law is as old as the Church ... [having come about] much as the Epistles had, prompted by specific questions or problems but understood as binding expressions of the universal Church's uniform practice – again, they deal with the application of principles. ... You can carry the whole thing [i.e., the Code of Canon Law] in your pocket, yet it governs a church of eight hundred million. (pp. 16-19)

Later, Johnson stresses the responsibility canon law places on the faithful:

[Y]ou have the right and the obligation to make your needs and desires known to your bishop, and the right to make known to bishops and to other Church members your opinions regarding the good of the Church. (p. 134)

For all the complaining some people do about being "powerless" in the clutches of clericalism, they probably spend little to no time really acquainting themselves with their privileges, rights, and duties to do something "in the light of the law." Indeed, people complain about the burdens of their lawful obligations only until the pleasures of their lawful rights are violated. ("Law is bad and repressive! … Hey, come back with my radio, thief! Police, help! … Ach, where is the law when you need it!") Johnson stresses the responsibilities canon law presents us with mainly because responsibility goes hand and hand with maturity, Christian or otherwise.

Finally, I'm convinced the Scriptures support law as a basic reality of life in Christ. The fundamental goal of canon law, after all, is to "preserve the unity of the Spirit" at all costs (Ephesians 4:3), in all its many details. More than that, according to the Bible, lawlessness is a rank disorder. Chiefly, consider 2 Timothy chapter 2:

3: Let no one deceive you in any way; for that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of perdition, 4: who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. ... 7: For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. 8: And then the lawless one will be revealed, and the Lord Jesus will slay him with the breath of his mouth and destroy him by his appearing and his coming. 9: The coming of the lawless one by the activity of Satan will be with all power and with pretended signs and wonders, 10: and with all wicked deception for those who are to perish, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. 11: Therefore God sends upon them a strong delusion, to make them believe what is false, 12: so that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Clearly, the "lawless one" is not interested in mere infractions of this or that canon regulation. His goal is an all-out assault on the saving lordship of Christ. The power of lawlessness opposes the headship and lordship of Christ as the supreme Master (or, "archos", head-power) of the Church. "And he [God] put all things beneath his [Christ's] feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of the one who fills all things in every way" (Ephesians 1:22-23). But as I said, unless this saving lordship manifests itself in real, nitty-gritty, pastoral ways, the power of lawlessness is already gaining an upper hand as "relationship" dissolve into a vague oily term called "spirituality." The impulse for a "law-free" relationship with God, therefore, shares a deep and deeply alarming affinity with the Spirit of Lawlessness gunning for Armageddon. (Similarly, when people decry "religion" in the name of "relationship," they are, usually quite unwittingly, decrying a virtue the Bible consistently exhorts us to have, namely, godliness qua piety [Grk., eusebeia].) The basic choice Christians face is to promote law and order in the Church for the sake of holiness and love, or to promote and live under anarchy (an-, without, archos, master) for the sake of so called freedom.

In light of all this, I've started this blog not only to give myself an outlet, a small online impetus, to learn more about canon law, but also to share my meager findings with others (particularly people in my parish).