L’Église institution face á l’individualisation du croire: Théologie et Droit de l’Église aux prises avec le paysage religieux by Jean-Marie Vianney Karangwa (review)

In his homily for the Mass that opened the papal conclave that would elect him as Pope Benedict XVI, His Eminence Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger spoke to the College of Cardinals of the danger of moral relativism within our society. Throughout his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of this concern on numerous occasions. His successor, Pope Francis, has also expressed his concern about this societal problem. The changing manner in which individuals in society and the Church incorporate their beliefs in their daily lives continues to be a topic of concern for many.

This volume contains the canon law dissertation of Jean-Marie Vianney Karangwa while studying at the University of Strasbourg. The work raises the question of the individualization of beliefs in today’s civil society and how the Catholic Church ought to address this concern. Karangwa argues that the individualization of belief encompasses a distancing of individuals from the Church as an institution. He further maintains that concerns about ecclesial law and worship have been proclaimed to respond to the needs of the Church rather than the demands that emanate from individual members of the Church (6).

In this rather extensive investigation of the topic, Karangwa arranges his book into two major parts, subdivided into fourteen sections in total, with a summary, a general introduction, a critical assessment of each of the two major parts of the book, and a general conclusion. The first part of the book considers a theological approach and the sociological aspects of the individualization of believing (29–387). Karangwa maintains that his purpose for the first part of the book is to show the paradox between the manner in which ecclesiology and religious fact address the characterization of individualization of belief (7). Within this part, he discusses topics such as the privatization of belief (60–122), the example of belief in French-speaking Belgium (123–170), and the individualization of belief in theological debates (223–281). The second part of the book addresses the manner in which canon law confronts the individualization of believing (391–777). Karangwa maintains that he styled the second part as a hermeneutical essay on the law of the Church (7, 392). In this latter part of the book, he considers topics such as the status of the individual in both civil and canon law (475–517), the management of education by both civil and Church authorities (517–550), and religious freedom and democracy (732–765). The book also comes with an extensive appendix that includes numerous tables, graphs, and maps to help support the arguments that Karangwa presents (Appendix 1–31).

While certain topics that Karangwa considers lend themselves to the application of canons from the Code of Canon Law (e.g., at 437–439, discussing cc. 129, 145, 331, 342–344, 623–632, as well as discussion of cc. 150, 476, 517, 521, 526, 527, 538, 542, 547, 564, 1108, and 1271), the topic as a whole is not one that leads to a broad application of the canons. Thus, the audience for this extensive work would be a more targeted one that is concerned with the emergence of the diversity of opinions on the individualization of belief and how society and the Church ought to respond to that dilemma. Moreover, the work is written in French and the reader will need an understanding of the language to grasp the arguments made.