Interpretation (Catholic canon law)

An "authentic interpretation" is an official and authoritative interpretation of a statute issued by the legislator of the statute. In canon law an authentic interpretation has the force of law.

Besides the Supreme Pontiff (Pope), who has plenary legislative power, several other authorities in the Catholic Church have various grades of legislative power. Primary examples are diocesan bishops and their equivalents, episcopal conferences, and particular councils.[1] Any of these legislators can issue authentic interpretations of their own[2] and their predecessors' laws.[3] Authentic interpretations supersede even administrative decisions of ordinaries and judgments of ecclesiastical courts, because neither of these acts have the force of law which authentic interpretations have.[4] The effect of an authentic interpretation is contingent on the extent of the interpretation:

An authentic interpretation which is presented by way of a law has the same force as the law itself, and must be promulgated. If it simply declares the words which are certain in themselves, it has retroactive force. If it restricts or extends a law or explains a doubtful one, it is not retroactive.[5]

Legislators also can entrust the power to authentically interpret their laws to another.[6] For the 1983 Code of Canon Law, the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches, and other Papal laws, the Supreme Pontiff has delegated authority of authentic interpretation to the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts.[7] The following table lists the authentic interpretations that this dicastery has issued (with Papal approbation).

In general, the authentic interpretation of a law may be made by the legislator or his successor or superior, but when this is not the case recourse must be had to what is called magisterial, or doctrinal, interpretation. It is for this latter mode that rules have been formed.

According to Benedict XVI, the instructions of the Magisterium regarding canon law and its interpretation are binding per se insofar as it teaches of the law. The juridically binding instructions on canonical interpretation of the Magisterium are primarily given in the allocutions of the Supreme Pontiffs to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota.[11]

Pope Benedict XVI, in his address of 21 January 2012 to the Roman Rota, taught that canonical law can only be interpreted and fully understood within the Catholic Church in the light of her mission and ecclesiological structure, and that "the work of the interpreter must not be deprived of "vital contact with ecclesial reality":[11]

All things considered, the hermeneutics of canonical laws is most closely tied to the very understanding of the law of the Church....In such realistic prospectiveness, the interpretative undertaking, at times arduous, takes on meaning and purpose. The use of the interpretive meaning foreseen by the Code of Canon Law in can. 17, beginning with "the proper meaning of the words considered in their text and context", is no longer a mere logical exercise. It has to do with an assignment that is vivified by an authentic contact with the comprehensive reality of the Church, which allows one to penetrate the true meaning of the letter of the law. Something then occurs, similar to what I said about the inner process of St Augustine in biblical hermeneutics: "the transcending of the letter has rendered the letter itself credible".[note 1] In such a manner, also in the hermeneutics of the law is it confirmed that the authentic horizon is that of the juridical truth to love, to seek out and to serve. It follows that the interpretation of canonical law must take place within the Church. This is not a matter of mere external circumstance, subject to the environs: it is a calling to the same humus of Canon Law and the reality regulated by it. Sentire cum Ecclesia takes on meaning also within the discipline, by reason of the doctrinal foundations that are always present and operative within the legal norms of the Church. In this manner, is also applied to Canon Law that hermeneutics of renewal in continuity of which I spoke in reference to the Second Vatican Council[note 2] so closely bound to the current canonical legislation. Christian maturity leads one to love the law ever more and want to understand it and to apply it faithfully.[11]

• New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, ed. by John P. Beal, James A. Coriden, and Thomas J. Green, Paulist Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-8091-0502-1 (hardback), ISBN 978-0-8091-4066-4 (paperback, 2002).
• Code of Canon Law Annotated, second English edition, ed. by Ernest Caparros, Michel Thériault, and Jean Thorn, 2004. ISBN 978-2-89127-629-0 (Wilson and Lafleur), ISBN 978-1-890177-44-7 (Midwest Theological Forum).
• Lawrence G. Wrenn, Authentic Interpretations on the 1983 Code, Canon Law Society of America, 1993. ISBN 978-0-943616-61-2.
• Pope Benedict XVI, Address of His Holiness Benedict XVI for the Inauguration of the Judicial Year of the Tribunal of the Roman Rota, 21 January 2012, https://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2012/january/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20120121_rota-romana.html, accessed 29 March 2016.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Words (in Canon Law)". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. The entry cites:
  • Ethelred Taunton, The Law of the Church (London, 1906), s.v.;
  • Lucius Ferraris, Bibl. Can., 5 (Rome, 1889), s.v. Lex.

• 1983 Code of Canon Law for the Latin Rite (CIC)
• 1990 Code of Canon Law for the Eastern Rites (CCEO)
• Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, June 28, 1988, by Pope John Paul II
• Interpretationes Authenticae, Latin text of authentic interpretations through 1998, on Vatican website
• English translation of authentic interpretations, from a 2000 canon law course at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio