Convention focuses on canon law 40 years after close of Vatican II

Published: 2005-10-13

TAMPA, Fla. (CNS) -- Church law has improved significantly since the Second Vatican Council, "but it still falls short of the vision of the council," according to a veteran canonist. Jesuit Father Ladislas Orsy, visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, was the keynote speaker at the opening session of the annual national convention of the Canon Law Society of America, held in Tampa Oct. 3-6. Father Orsy, who has written extensively on the relationship between theology and canon law, has also taught at The Catholic University of America in Washington, the Gregorian University in Rome, Jesuit-run Fordham University in New York and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. The theme of the society's 2005 convention and title of Father Orsy's talk was "'Sacrae Disciplinae Leges': Forty Years After the Council." "Sacrae Disciplinae Leges" is the apostolic constitution by which Pope John Paul II promulgated the revised Code of Canon Law in 1983. Father Orsy offered what he called his "unfinished reflections" on the state of the church and canon law before, during and after the council, which ended in 1965.

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