Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

A little education about canon lawyers...thanks to Ed Peters for this:  Edward Peters, "What canon lawyers are and aren't", This Rock (November 1991) 19-22.                 Most people think of canon lawyers as bespectacled, gray-haired monsignors who sit in dark-paneled rooms and quote Latin verses from authors dead for a hundred years. It may have been like that once, but today canon lawyers cut rather a different figure. Here I want to explain what canon lawyers are and aren't, what canon law is, and how to use (or not to use) a canon lawyer.           Canon law is the legal system of the Catholic Church. It is the oldest functioning legal system in the Western world. The word canon comes from the Greek kanon, meaning a rule or measure. In the early centuries of Christianity, canon law consisted mostly of rules developed in synods and counc...

Post- comprehensive exam smiles! Three little letters but they caused a lot of work, study, stress and even some sweat and tears along the way. But it was worth it! J.C.L is the title which we are given after we complete our studies in Canon Law at a licentiate level. It stands for Juris Canonici Licentia, literally, licence in Canon Law. It has been a long and busy two years of study and exams but the time had come to transform that knowledge into some kind of coherent thoughts and follow through with the Comprehensive exam. The Comprehensive exam is a one hour oral exam which is carried out before four professors. You are permitted to pick fifteen themes out of seventy-five to get you started for the exam but you are expected to know all the themes in the Code of Canon Law which is not mean feat I tell you! So after we finished classes and our exams for our other course, we had a few days to prepare for the dreaded comps! Our residence Deschatelets was so quiet. First yea...

Probably checking out the news about our new bishops in Ireland! Someone recently commented that I don’t blog much about what I am actually studying. I suppose it is because I wonder if many people are actually interested in the weird and wonderful world that is Canon Law. On Monday, we return to our somewhat normal academic schedule. The Latin books and notes came off the bookshelf and were flicked through considering we are back to amo, amas, amat after the weekend!  However, over the past two weeks I have been indulging in one of my favourite things: Liturgical Law. Squeezing a three year licentiate into two years means that some of our courses can be slightly intense and since the beginning of January we have had specialized modules, that is, one subject, every day, morning and afternoon! It has been somewhat of a marathon but we covered such a variety of topics and documents over these days, all of them very interesting. The first course was entitled ‘Liturgical Law outs...