School of Canon Law

Diritto Canonico

The School of Canon Law strives to prepare canonists with a deep theoretical and practical knowledge of Church law, which helps them develop legal skills with pastoral sensibility, while meeting the practical demands of legal praxis among God's people.

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Teaching follows a systematic method. It attempts to integrate the many juridical institutions emerging from the study of the Church’s Law within the diverse branches of canonical science. All this, in conformity with the Church’s vision of herself as expressed in the Second Vatican Council.

The program’s realist perspective helps the student to appreciate the dimension of justice that belongs to the salvific goods of the Church even prior to their reception in positive law.  This metaphysical realism offers a much richer viewpoint than the old positivistic outlook, which still influences some currents of canonical thought.  Students learn to seek justice while exercising legal prudence in fidelity to sound ecclesiastical tradition.
The program integrates theoretical study with courses on legal praxis.

The School has a large number of permanent professors as well as many prestigious visiting professors from the Roman Curia and from all over the world.

The School’s research and teaching are enriched by the staff’s experience in various dicasteries of the Holy See and in the Tribunals of the Vicariate of Rome. Close links to and regular academic collaboration with colleagues from other universities of Rome and of other countries also enrich the School, along with the theological research and collaboration of the School of Theology.

 

Sezione: 

In evidenza

On April 10th and 11th, 2024 (at 8:45 am, in the Aula Magna Giovanni Paolo II), the 28th Study Conference of the School of Canon Law was held on the theme Criminal Justice in the Church: Victim Protection and Defendant Guarantees.

During the conference, truly pivotal themes were addressed, such as the presumption of innocence, the status of the victim in canonical criminal proceedings, and the concept of due process of law applied to the canonical sphere. On the other hand, apparently "peripheral" topics were also studied, including the capacity of the defendant, cognitive biases, the effect of state penal judgments in canonical law, precautionary measures, and moral certainty in cases of a single witness.

On the occasion of the Easter Holidays, both the Palazzo dell'Apollinare and the Library will be closed from March 28th to April 1st, 2024.

From April 2nd to April 7th, exams and classes for the ISSR will be held at the Apollinare.

Classes for the Faculties will resume on Monday, April 8th.

Wishing you a blessed Easter Resurrection!

On Thursday, March 14, 2024 (from 9 am to 6:30 pm, in the Aula Magna Giovanni Paolo II), the "Centro di studi Giuridici sulla Famiglia", operating at the School of Canon Law, organized the 6th Interdisciplinary Study Day on Legal Anthropology of the Family, entitled Anthropology of the Family and Work: From the Search for Balance to the Discovery of Complementarity.

On Thursday, February 29, 2024 (at 4 PM - Álvaro del Portillo Hall), the School of Canon Law has organized a Round Table titled The Duty to Report Crimes of Abuse.

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