Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The canonical penal system, like the other parts of the C.I.C., is being subrr,itted to a profound revision, on the basis of a fidelity towards the fundamental elements which con'ltitute the Ilature of the Church, and of a desire to respond to the exigencies of the dynamics of the actual juridical life of the ecclesiastical society. In this line, and upon the bases mentioned , this present work, fruit of a prolonged investigation, pretends to illuminate and salve, within the bounds of possibility, the rich problematic which such sn enterprise entails. For this, the starting point is to show the inefficacy in fact of the penal system in vigor in arder to salve the actual conflictive situations which are attempts against the Faith and Tradition, and against the very unity of the Church. At the same time, this work expounds upon normative defects and defects of juridical techniques, which, if they do not justify the aforementioned inefficacy, at least explain it. The facts about the nature of the Church, which are the apportation of Vatican Council 11, serve as the illuminating criteria of those principies, which the author considers as fundamental in the construction of an adequate canonical penal system, which is in accordance with the bases that were mentioned at the beginning. The study ano exposition of such principies occupy the most important and most extensive part of the present work. For the elaboration of this work the aUJthor has taken into consideration everything which the Coetus consultorum, charged with the task of reforming Book V of the C.I.C., has published respective to the topic at hand.

In relation with the first post-conciliar Concordate, Prof. Catalana underlines, in the first place, the permanente validity of the institution of the concordate as an instrument of relationship between the Holy See and the States. In the second place he insists upon the crisis of the basic theses of pre-conciliar «ius publicum ecclesiasticum». Immediately following that, and always bearing in mind the perspective of the conciliar doctrine, the author analyzes some of the topics which can be found in this Concordate: the non-confessionality of the State and the recognition of religious liberty, Iiberty of instruction and confessional schools, the marriage system, the naming of bishops, the «privilegia clericorum», etc. After checking the opinion of the Colombian authorities and that of the Holy See on the text of the Concordate, the author expresses his own personal point of view on the matter