Studia Pastoralne
Rocznik Wydziału Teologicznego UŚ

PROMOTION OF THE FAMILY IN CANON LAW. Comments in light of § 1 can. 226 of Code of Canon Law.
Summary
Two remarks of John Paul II from his Letter to families (1994) constitute landmarks of the contemporary Magisterium de familia christiana. „The family itself – says number 19 of the document – is the great mystery of God. As the »domestic church«, it is the bride of Christ. The universal Church, and every particular Church in her, is most immediately revealed as the bride of Christ in the »domestic church« and in its experience of love: conjugal love, paternal and maternal love, fraternal love, the love of a community of persons and of generations”. This statement correlates with a part of number 17 of the said letter: „As a community of love and life, the family is a firmly grounded social reality. It is also, in a way entirely its own, a sovereign society, albeit conditioned in certain ways. This affirmation of the family’s sovereignty as an institution and the recognition of the various ways in which it is conditioned naturally leads to the subject of family rights”. As P.J. Viladrich rightly observed, a creative academic reflection on a convergence of meaning resulting from the both famous notions „domestic church” and „sovereign family” may contribute to implementation of a postulate to place family in a central position of systematics of the canon law. Christian family has an unquestionable constitutional and legal place in the Church and a society. What is at stake here is „a primary basic structure around which the people of God is build up, configured and fundamentally organised” (J. Hervada). Representatives of the so called „Spanish school” unanimously point at the canon – key to a new placement of a family in a canonical legal order. If the science of canon law still has got a task to introduce a congruent system of family law, a peculiar catalyst and a starting point of its fulfilment may be a formula of canon 226 § 1 of the Code of Canon Law which states that: „According to their own vocation, those who live in the marital state are bound by a special duty to work through marriage and the family to build up the people of God”.

PASTORAL DIMENSION OF THE CANON LAW. COMMENTS BASED ON ADDRESSES TO THE TRIBUNAL OF THE ROMAN ROTA OF THE YEARS 2006 AND 2011
Summary
The main point of the article is the aspectual attempt at answering the question of how defining the aim of the canon law (theological justification of ius Ecclesiae) can result in its substantial and adequate use. The background of the scholarly contemplation are Benedict XVI’s addresses to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota of 2006 and 2011. The cognition of enunciations contained in those addresses gives the basis for the exploration of some crucial matters: What does such a firmly articulated magisterial indication that the ecclesiology of the Lumen Gentium Dogmatic Constitution on the Church plays an irreplaceable role in the appropriate interpretation and application of law mean? What intention does that firm, as for the Post-Second Vatican Council time, emphasis on the pastoral dimension of the canon law by the church legislator entail? Authentic pastoral sensibility, which the mentioned-above Pope’s addresses authoritatively treat about, reveals itself in the pastoral solicitude to prevent nullity of a marriage at the time such a marriage contract is approved of, as well as in judicial defense and promotion of the truth about the human person and marital/family-oriented communio personarum. The clou of those issues is well reflected in the words of Benedict XVI: „it is necessary to encourage in all sectors, and in a particular way in the field of marriage and of the family, a positive dynamic, sign of profound harmony between the pastoral and the juridical which will certainly prove fruitful in the service rendered to those who are approaching marriage” (Address to the Roman Rota, Jan. 22, 2011).