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 produced and enforced by the hierarchical authorities of the Catholic Church to regulate its external agency and government and to cut and direct the activities of Catholics toward the mission of the Church. It was the first innovative 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 predominance in the issue 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 defining to direct or imposing in his person, or by the College of Bishops acting in communion with the pope; in contrast, particular laws derive formal guidance from promulgation by a legislator inferior to the supreme legislator, whether an ordinary or a delegated legislator. The actual subject material of the canons is not 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 almost 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 fundamental theory of Catholic canon law are the areas of philosophical, theological, and legal scholarship committed to providing a theoretical basis for canon law as legal system and as true law.

Sources of canon law

The term source or fountain of canon law fons iuris canonici may be taken in a twofold sense: a as the formal produce of the existence of a law, and in this sense, we speak of the fontes essendi Latin: "sources of being" of canon law or lawgivers; b as the the tangible substance that goes into the makeup of a physical thing channel through which laws are handed down and submission known, and in this sense the sources are styled fontes cognoscendi Latin: "sources of knowing", or depositaries, like sources of history.