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  • Editor's Introduction
  • Kurt Martens (bio)

We are happy to present to our readership the second issue of 2012 with a varied offering of contributions, ranging from parish reorganization through marriage issues, liturgical subjects, history of canon law, theology of canon law, and authentic interpretations to conclude with the CCEO.

In a first article, Robert W. Oliver presents the new pastoral plan for the parishes in the Archdiocese of Boston. The plan recognized the grave needs for reorganization, but, rather than recommending large-scale mergers of parishes and closures of churches, a new and innovative approach to pastoral planning was proposed.

In a second contribution, "The Tribunal Vetitum: A Practice in Search of a Theory", John P. Beal examines important questions about the nature of the relatively new institute of the tribunal vetitum. These often unresolved questions are important, because the vetitum impinges on a person's natural right to marry.

In her contribution, Rose McDermott, S.S.J., offers a brief historical overview of the various ways the Holy See exercised vigilance over religious institutes and societies of apostolic life that gradually took the form of a very complex periodic report required in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, experienced a hiatus in 1967, and then was substantially revised in 1988, five years subsequent to the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law. She also analyses the more recent 2008 Guidelines supplementing the Report and rooted in the apostolic exhortation Vita consecrata. [End Page 331]

The three next articles are the texts of the Fourth (2010), Fifth (2011) and Sixth (2012) Frederick R. McManus Memorial Lectures, delivered respectively by John F. Baldovin, S.J., Robert F. Taft, S.J., and Thomas Krosnicki, S.V.D.

In his article, Brandon T. Parlopiano deals with the burden of proving insanity in the medieval ius commune. While such an article might at first sight not be interesting for the contemporary canonist, the author not only shows that after almost 300 years of addressing the problem of how to prove insanity, a final solution is not closer. Although the solutions offered at various times were not perfect, the thought of the medieval ius commune on the burden of proving insanity provides a number of insights for legal scholars of the present day, such as the fact that we can see here a cross-fertilization between Roman and canon law at work.

Until the motu proprio Omnium in mentem (2009), canons 1086, 1117 and 1124 all described a Catholic as someone who "has been baptized in the Catholic Church or received into it and has not defected from it by a formal act." The formal act of defection caused considerable problems in Germany: many Catholics left the Church to avoid having to pay church taxes along with their income tax. Daniela Knepper clarifies this German problem in her contribution.

The relationship between theology and canon law has led to various schools of thought. While the approaches of the schools of Navarra and Munich are usually well known, the epistemological approach is less known. Andrea Ponzone has studied the work of Teodoro Jiménez Urresti, a Spanish scholar who spent his entire academic life studying the epistemological approach to canon law and researching for an epistemological statute of the science of canon law.

Various ways or modes of interpretation of canon law were recognized. We can think of interpretations made by private persons, interpretations by the public ecclesiastical administration by means of an administrative act, and interpretations by judges in a judicial sentence. The meaning of a doubtful law can officially and authoritatively be resolved through a special form of interpretation, known as "authentic interpretation". John Huels focuses on these authentic interpretations and presents some guidelines for classifying authentic interpretations of canon law. [End Page 332]

Finally, Jobe Abbas offers an analysis of and commentary on an official explanatory note concerning the interpretation to be given canon 1 of the Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium (CCEO) by the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.

As usual, we have included a number of book reviews and a list of books received. [End Page 333]

Kurt Martens

Associate Professor, School of Canon Law, The Catholic University of America, Washington...

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