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Leo PP. XIII Depuis le jour IntraText CT - Text |
27. Lastly, to finish the cycle of studies by which candidates for the priesthood should prepare themselves for their future ministry, mention must be made of Canon Law, or the science of the laws and jurisprudence of the Church. This science is connected by very close and logical ties with that of Theology, which it applies practically to all that concerns the government of the Church, the dispensation of holy things, the rights and duties of her ministers, the use of temporal goods which she needs for the accomplishment of her mission. "Without a knowledge of Canon Law (as the Fathers of one of your provincial councils very well said), theology is imperfect, incomplete, like a man with only one arm. Ignorance of Canon Law has favored the birth and diffusion of numerous errors about the rights of the Roman Pontiffs and of Bishops, and about the powers which the Church derives from her own Constitution-powers whose exercise she adapts to circumstances."17