Editor’s Note

In the spring of this year, the Editorial Board of The Jurist appointed me as this journal’s new Editor, following the conclusion of my predecessor’s term. It is an honor to have been entrusted with this role. In the name of the same Board, I take this occasion to express gratitude and esteem for Professor Kurt Martens, for his fruitful years as Editor, in service to the School of Canon Law and the academy.

As Editor of The Jurist, Dr. Martens published over 3,000 pages of scholarly material. Among these were not only articles and book reviews but also, for the first time in this journal’s history, the contentious-administrative jurisprudence of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. Other timely documentation from the Apostolic See, too, has been included in its pages thanks to him.

The articles he published cover the whole range of the Church’s discipline, including all books of the Code of Canon Law, general and theological themes, historical questions, and the law governing the Eastern Catholic Churches. The articles were written by many accomplished canonists of the Church; among these, ten of them were authored by Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, seven by other members of the College of Bishops, and two by a Rotal Auditor. Additionally, and quite famously at the time, he accomplished the collection and publication of some of the first scholarly commentaries (in any language) on Pope Francis’ motu proprios Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus and Mitis et misericors Iesus, by which aspects of the marriage nullity process were revised.

While following such a service is formidable, it is surely undertaken with a continuity grounded in this conviction: “Knowledge of and respect for the canonical discipline is indispensable to the Church’s response to the call for a new evangelization.”¹ The Editorial Board and I aspire to draw the readership’s attention consistently to this conviction, so that The Jurist may continue to constitute a forum for exploring how canon law is directed toward and effective in aiding the Church’s sacred mission, the salus animarum.