Historical Development of Canon Law in Spain: Christian Jurists and Their Impact, Resúmenes de Derecho Eclesiástico

¡Descarga Historical Development of Canon Law in Spain: Christian Jurists and Their Impact y más Resúmenes en PDF de Derecho Eclesiástico solo en Docsity! MARCOS PASCUAL CARRILLO BOOK COMMENT “GREAT CHRISTIAN JURISTS IN SPANISH HISTORY” ANALYSIS 1. CONTEXT AND CONTENTS This year, | gotthe chance to read a book for my law and religion class in which some of the main christian jurists of all spanish history are depicted and explained. In each chapter you could see the different viewpoints that all of the thinkers had and compare it with the next one. All of this thinkers have one thing in common: Canon Law. As | just commented, Canon Law was the interconnexion between all of the thinkers included in this book. This type of law develops from a more primitive one called Ecclesiastical Law. The ecclesiastical law is the branch inside of law that studies the juridical relationship between any religious confession and the Central State. Meanwhile, Canon Law refers only to the relationship between the catholic church and the State. In Spain (due to our history) the catholic church plays a very important role inside of our social affairs, and that leads to a better understanding of the customs that this religion has. That's why in Spain, the vast majority of thinkers are going to analyse and focus on this relationship. The spanish historical relationship with the catholic church began centuries before christ. In this period, the Iberian Peninsula is under roman influence (culture that will bring a whole new point later on). During this phase all of the peninsula evolved greatly thanks to the juridical culture that the conquerors had and transmitted to the peninsular inhabitants. Thanks to this decisive things such as the catholic religion arrived to Spain. As | said, the juridical culture that romans had was splendid and influenced greatly. Great figures as Tomás Sánchez and Álvaro d'Ors studied this period of time due to that. Here, it wasn't clear the distinction of the one who held political and the one who had the religious sovereignty. Normally the Emperor was the one in charge of both sides (this method of attributing power was called Caesaropapism). This will be one of the decisive facts of why the historians will choose this period to do a further study. All the legislation (without any subject distinction) went through one man, so the centralization was at its peak performance. This law was at the beginning different for citizens (/us Civile) and non-citizens (lus Gentium). This distinction was the only thing that romans looked in order to apply one law or another (taking into granted that you are a free person and a sui ¡uris (non-dependent person)). So, the codification in those days was clearer: what the emperor approved was applied for both citizens and foreigners . This continued like this until the Edict of Caracalla (212), where the conditions to access the roman citizenship were easier to achieve so that more people could access to the benefits of being a citizen. The legislation about religion was quite non-existent. Inside of the roman territory, their own polytheistic religion was worshiped (Jupiter, Juno, Flora, Neptune, ...). Temples were built and enormous celebrations were held to honor this gods (that were “more human” than the christian one). But the situation changed when christianity arrived. This specific religion evolved from prosecution to be considered as the official religion of the empire. That meant huge change in traditions (Lupernalia is an example of a roman tradition that was forced to be eliminated with the arrival of christianism). With all of this, the juridical culture changed again following the cultural and moral behaviour code that this new religion followed. As | have previously mentioned, this era has influenced greatly future jurist generations. An example of this is Álvaro d'Ors, a thinker from the 20' century that focused his efforts on the appliance of roman legislative criteria into the 20'/21* century. Álvaro d'Ors (1915-2004) was a christian thinker who seeked for a development of general knowledge from a christian point of view. Among his contributions, the ones done to the study and understanding of roman law were the greatests. In general, all of the theories that he came up with were based on the roman framework. For example, he studied in detail the Edictum Perpetuum and the code of Euric to make it clearer for future generations how did the romans (and the visigoths) legislate and create their own jurisprudence. Another important point in his political theory (written after the spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in which he took part) is the creation of a new way to divide the State's power. Instead of following the traditional legislative, executive and judiciary way, he proposed a new way following several roman distinction methods (autoritas/protestas; lex/ius; dominium/possession). He thought that this way of diving the power was much more efficient than the one suggested during Modernism. In 476 the occidental part of this empire fell, and with it the different laws. All of the following years were a bit turbulent: monarchies were forming and with this the religious power was directly given to the monarchs (due to the remnant parts of caesaropapism, a movement that defends that all the power must belong to the ruler). Those monarchies were now reshaping the world geopolitical sphere. Now, instead of having a strong empire ruled by the same laws and following the same interests, we have several kingdoms each with its own interest and legislation. In the vast majority of the, christianism was the official religion. Going back Spain, the main event that happen after that fall was the muslim invasion of the Iberian Peninsula (711-788). With this event all of the christian kingdoms were settled in the northern part of the peninsula. With this a huge mentality change happened in the southern part of Spain (conquered by the muslims). All of the culture that muslims brought with them will stay the eight centuries that this religious group had major presence in the peninsula. The decisive year was 1492. Until here, the christian kingdoms of Spain were little by little advancing towards the south reconquering all of the land occupied by the muslims. The process brought with it the reconversion to christianism. With this movement, the so called “catholic kings” ensured that in all of the territory was practiced the same religion. In order to have even more certainty that the religiosity of the converted was pure, the Catholic Kings created the Inquisition (an organism that looked after the respect for the religion and prosecuted false converts. Concepción Arenal (1820-1893) was considered as one of the most important female figures in the development of different social rights. For example she defended the reincorporation of rehabilitated criminals into society, defended women's rights and she always fought for equality. Her writings tried to change jails into factories. One of her most famous writings was “Law of nations” a text in which she defended a series of international agreements in right treatment matteria that went over race, sex or nationality. She believed that a future in which a common law was applied in every country to every one of its citizens (for them to have the exact same conditions) was possible The 20' century was even darker. In this century happened two world wars, several revolutions, the spanish Civil War, an enormous economic crisis,... This made society in general to lose almost all hope in the human being. Ideas such as Nietzsche's “God is dead” began to become very famous. People lost all hope of God trying to fix all that mess. Politically this century was a complete chaos. In Spain for example we have 2 dictatorships (Primo de Rivera's and Franco's) (both with a nacionalist point of view, a republic, and democracy all packed up. Until 1931 the relationship between politics and religion was consistent, it was considered as the one accepted by tradition. Mainly all of the traditions and customs in Spain were shaped to this religion and this religions had many different advantages than others. For example, christians were allowed to exercise as teachers. This situation continued like this for some years, but the Second Spanish Republic was established. With the establishment of this new form of ruling, all religions were accepted but the State wouldn't have cooperated with anyone of them. lt is said in the 1931 constitution that no religion has the official place, and that all religions will be considered as associations with all of the consequences that meant. In 1917 a Code of Canon Law was published. In here, general instructions about how to regulate Canon Law were established. The pope Benedict XV gave his approval to the publishing of this compilation and so it happened. The situation continued like that until 1939. When the Civil War finished, this constitutional text was derogated and the Fundamental Laws of the Realm were imposed to the spaniards. Here, it is said that the only acceptable religion is the catholic one. During the franquist regime, we went back to the pre-republican form: more convents were established, religion returned to be compulsory, and society was another time under religious influence. This kept going like this until 1975 when general Franco died. The 20' of november 1975 Franco's life ended and with him his dictatorship. The Years that followed the death of Franco were a bit turbulent because we went from an authoritarian regime to a democracy in less than ten years. This period of time was crucial, because the basis of the future Spain were going to be settled in that moment. In the transition period we can find relevant figures as Francisco Martinez Marina (1754-1833) who is considered one of the first spanish constitutionalist theorist. He establishes as well a different notion of Rousseau's social contract in which humanity had a determined social behavioural code of behaviouring. His vision of the division of powers was a little bit different of the general tonic. The model presented by him had four branches: Legislative, Subvertivo, Executive and judiciary. The first two were exercised by th Cortes, while the last two were in the hands of the monarch. With the creation of the 1978 constitution all of the doubts were solved. Religions were treated equally (in the sense of being accepted in order to profess it inside of the State's territory. We don't have an official religion, but many religions are now accepted by the State. This created a pluricultural horizont were people were free to choose their beliefs and (of course) not prosecuted because of that reason. Later, in 1983, a definite (and upgraded) version of the 1917 code was published. This document is considered as the fundamental body of ecclesiastical laws for the Latin Church. For this codex to be written, the help of one spaniard was needed. This spaniard was called Pedro Lombardía. Pedro Lombardía (1930-1986) is one of the most important figures in the subject of Canon Law in Spain. He didn't just take part in the councils were the Canon Law Code was written, he changed the way that this subject was taught in all ofthe spanish universities. He created the “school of Navarra”, a group of future teacher that would follow his exact same steps while teaching that subject. Little by little he changed the way in which people perceived what was the canon law. lt develops from being a weapon used by the church, to be the fundamental bases in which all of the christian church lies. 2. GENERAL CONCLUSION It's interesting to read this kind of books because they teach you to think outside of the box about the different history phases and way of thinking. Of course you can't judge medieval acts with contemporary laws, because that would be very unfair. But | find very useful that we sometimes stop and think: “what made this person in that age to stand up against the ruling system?”, “what could have happened if anthropocentrism (for example) never happened”?”,... This questions are good to be asked for them sometimes, because it helps you to visualize daily normatives from another perspective. I'm fascinated with the development of this branch of law. From being almost non-existent, to be one of the biggest branches inside of the law tree. It's interesting to see how little by little this type of law got more followers and people that defended it. That lets us see that this is making people think and its letting people to realise that a religion left freely (without any limitation) in a society could be a serious harm to that society. Another thing that caught my attention is the fact that without any further look into religious field, most of the famous activists in different countries defended the same. !'Il make myself clear: Concepción Arenal and Lucretia Coffin Mott defended the same things (equal rights and equal treatment for women). Arenal was a catholic thinker and Coffin just with the same beliefs in different parts of the world, denied obedience to what their religion told them and protested against it (in different levels of pacifism). 3. PERSONAL OPINION In general | have find this book quite interesting. Of course, this is not a novel, you have to be interested in the matter and have real interest into the biography and bibliography of some of the most famous spanish christian thinkers. Anyways it's always good to know better the historical way of thinking that some of your ancient figures have had and how with that line of thought you are right where you stand.