This past week I had the pleasure of attending the Canon Law Society of America convention. Canon Law is the body of laws or regulations that govern a Christian organization and its members, in this case the Catholic Church. The question of how the conciliatory processes presented in Taming the Wolf might integrate with canon law was foremost on my mind during the week.
Why does a church need a code of canons, a book of law? This is not an entirely naive question: when we understand the purpose of the law we can apply the law wisely.
Fundamentally, canons are rules that guide relationships, govern behavior and bring order to an organization. They insure the rights of the faithful are protected and their obligations enumerated. Sr. Sharon Holland, during the convention, noted the theological underpinning of the law is right relationship. The law, she argued, creates order that allows grace and charity to flourish and salvation to take place. Order brings tranquility and makes teaching, sanctifying, and governing possible, she explained.
The law, however, is necessarily a bare bones statement of underlying principles. The statement itself is “the letter of the law” while the underlying principle is the “spirit of the law.” A challenge faced in the canon law setting, perhaps more than in civil law, is remaining true to the spirit of the law while working with canons, statements of legal principles. Canon law carries an extra burden: it must faithfully reflect scripture—the spirit of the law must be consistent with the spirit of the Word.
Thus, a canon lawyer must be extra cautious and refuse to focus myopically on the letter of the law; he or she must remain anchored in the spirit of the law and in the workings of the Holy Spirit. This becomes a challenge in an adversarial setting.
As discussed in Taming the Wolf adversarial processes move disputing parties away from the nuanced and complex lived truths that exist beneath all conflict. It is rare to find a dispute or transgression that can be accurately reduced to the simplicity of a sentence or paragraph. Yet adversarial processes often force us to shoehorn reality into the narrow confines of a canon or statement of law. Judges are constantly perplexed by the difficult task of matching reality to legal abstractions. (Though many do an excellent job despite the nature of the challenge.)
The imperfection of an adversarial approach does not mean we must never render a judicial decision. There are times when we have no choice. There are times when we must appraise behavior, actions, or intentions in light of a code and determine if the shared agreement of the group has been transgressed. There are times when one or both parties are unprepared to engage in mediation or other conciliatory processes. There are times when additional education and/or spiritual formation is required before a party can fully participate in a conciliatory process—and there may not be sufficient time for preparation to take place before a decision is needed.
However, in many instances, though parties may be hesitant initially, convening takes place. In such cases the lived truth, rich and nuanced, is typically revealed, cautiously at first but with increased willingness as the process matures. Parties soon find themselves engaged in a more meaningful exchange, which in turn provides encouragement to proceed.
Such processes, once under way, allow parties a better opportunity to access the spirit of the law and experience the presence of the Holy Spirit. The difference in emphasis between a judicial process and a conciliatory process may best be characterized by the presence of a prayer team engaging in fasting and prayer during the conciliatory process. The commitment to spiritual transformation is simply greater in the conciliatory approach (in spite of the likely presence of harsh feelings between the parties).
During the mediation process the code does not disappear from sight: canons continue to serve as reference points for discussion and negotiation of right relationship. The difference becomes one of perspective—in the conciliatory process the letter of the law becomes a jumping off point in the search for the spirit of the law and the spirit of the Word.
In mediation the spirit of the law does not remain an abstract philosophical factor but rather is brought to life by the workings of the Holy Spirit. Participants seek solutions for living in right relationship and often depend on the advocacy of the Holy Spirit for success. Mediation possesses vertical and horizontal components: parties heal their relationship with God while healing their relationship with one another. When this is successful meaningful spiritual transformation takes place. Each party gives the gift of their presence to the other and the event becomes a turning point in their shared worldly pilgrimage.
This approach closely mirrors the transition from Old Testament laws to the new covenant Jesus introduced in the Sermon on the Mount. Details of law are overshadowed by the love discovered and/or re established between participants. Parties often become able to see the divine, the image of God, in each other, which elevates right relationship from a legal concept to a lived experience.
Pax et bonum.