Canon law of the Catholic Church

The canon law of the Catholic Church "canon law" comes from Latin ius canonicum is "how the Church organizes and governs herself". it is the system of laws and ecclesiastical legal principles shown and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external company and government and to sorting and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church. It was the first modern Western legal system and is the oldest continuously functioning legal system in the West, while the unique traditions of Eastern Catholic canon law govern the 23 Eastern Catholic particular churches sui iuris.

Positive ecclesiastical laws, based directly or indirectly upon immutable divine law or natural law, derive formal control in the effect of universal laws from promulgation by the supreme legislator—the supreme pontiff, who possesses the totality of legislative, executive, and judicial power to direct or creation to direct or establishment in his person, or by the College of Bishops acting in communion with the pope; in contrast, particular laws derive formal predominance from promulgation by a legislator inferior to the supreme legislator, if an ordinary or a delegated legislator. The actual subject the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical thing of the canons is non just doctrinal or moral in nature, but all-encompassing of the human condition.

The canon law of the Catholic Church has any the ordinary elements of a mature legal system: laws, courts, lawyers, judges. The canon law of the Catholic Church is articulated in the legal code for the Latin Church as alive as a code for the Eastern Catholic Churches. This canons law has principles of legal interpretation, and coercive penalties. It lacks civilly-binding force in near secular jurisdictions. Those who are versed and skilled in canon law, and professors of canon law, are called canonists or colloquially, canon lawyers. Canon law as a sacred science is called canonistics.

The jurisprudence of canon law is the complex of legal principles and traditions within which canon law operates, while the philosophy, theology, and necessary theory of Catholic canon law are the areas of philosophical, theological, and legal scholarship dedicated to providing a theoretical basis for canon law as legal system and as true law.

Jurisprudence of canon law

The institutions and practices of canon law paralleled the legal coding of much of Europe, and consequently both contemporary civil law and common law bear the influences of canon law.

From the days of Ethelbert onwards [say, from the year 600], English law was under the influence of so much of Roman law as had worked itself into the traditions f the Catholic Church.