Aequitas canonica and Access to the Sacrament of Penance during the First Wave of COVID-19 in 2020 in the Light of the Principles of Canon Law


Abstract

Epidemiological measures during the first wave of the coronavirus epidemic in 2020 significantly affected the realization of religious freedom, including religious services and sacraments. This paper deals with one narrower topic in this area, namely, the regulation of access to the sacrament of penance in response to measures of secular law. It focuses mainly on the modalities of allowing access to this sacrament in the Catholic Church, both in terms of universal law and in terms of particular law and proposals for its formulation.


Keywords

Churches and religious societies; religious freedom; restriction of rights; Catholic Church; sacraments; Sacrament of Penance; canon law; analogy

Apostolic Penitentiary. Note on the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the Present Emergency of the Coronavirus (19.03.2020). https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/tribunals/apost_penit/documents/rc_trib_appen_pro_20200319_decreto-speciali-indulgenze_en.html#NOTE. Accessed August 5, 2022.

Armstrong, Mark. “Church in France introduces drive-in confession during coronavirus lockdown (03.05.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022. www.euronews.com/2020/05/03/church-infrance-introduces-drive-in-confession-during-coronavirus-lockdown.

Brunelli, Lucio. “Fedeli senza confessione? Una soluzione c’è (17.03.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022. www.vita.it/it/article/2020/03/17/fedeli-senza-confessione-una-soluzione-ce/154506/.

Catechism of the Catholic Church. New York: Doubleday, 1994.

Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches: Latin-English Edition. Washington: Canon Law Society of America, 2001.

Code of Canon Law: Latin-English Edition. Washington: Canon Law Society of America, 1983.

Francis, Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Mitis et misericors Iesus by which the canons of the code of canon law pertaining to cases regarding the nullity of marriage are reformed (15.08.2015). Accessed August 6, 2022. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio_20150815_mitis-et-misericors-iesus.html.

Francis. Apostolic Letter Motu Proprio Mitis Iudex Dominus Iesus by which the canons of the code of canon law pertaining to cases regarding the nullity of marriage are reformed (15.08.2015). Accessed August 6, 2022. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/motu_proprio/documents/papa-francesco-motu-proprio_20150815_mitis-iudex-dominus-iesus.html.

“Giuristi per la pastorale: Intervista a Don Giorgio Giovanelli (04.02.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022. agenparl.eu/giuristi-per-la-pastorale-intervista-a-don-giorgio-giovanelli/.

Handbuch der Ostkirchenkunde, Band III. Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag, 1997.

“Jak je to nyní se svátostí smíření? Inspirace ze Slovenska [How Is It Now with the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Inspiration from Slovakia] (18.03.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022. www.cirkev.cz/cs/aktuality/200318jak-je-to-nyni-se-svatosti-smireni-inspirace-ze-slovenska.

Kath. Kirchengemeinde Herz Jesu Zehlendorf, “Newsletter vom 02. April 2020. Mitteilung des Erzbischofs zur Generalabsolution (4.04.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022. www.herzjesu-berlin.de/unsere-newsletter/#Newsletter_vom_13_Maerz_2020.

Madey, Johannes. Quellen und Grundzüge des Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium: Ausgewählte Themen. Essen: Ludgerus Verlag, 1999.

Němec, Damián. “Přístup ke svátosti pokání v katolické církvi během první vlny epidemie koronaviru v roce 2020 [Access to the Sacrament of Penance in the Catholic Church during the First Wave of the Coronavirus Epidemic in 2020].” In Právna politika a legislatíva v oblasti konfesného práva: Zborník z medzinárodnej vedeckej konferencie v rámci online medzinárodného vedeckého kongresu Trnavské právnické dni, 24–25 septembra 2020 [Legal

Policy and Legislation in the Field of Religion Law: Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference of the Online International Scientific Congress Trnava Law Days, 24–25 September 2020], edited by Michaela Moravčíková, 33–51. Trnava: Právnická fakulta TU v Trnave, 2020.

Nykiel, Krzysztof. “Confessione e riconciliazione al tempo del coronavirus (20.03.2020).” Accessed August 4, 2022. www.vaticannews.va/it/vaticano/news/2020-03/confessione-riconciliazione-coronavirus-24-ore-signore.html.

Pempel, Kacper. “Priest Takes ‘Drive-in’ Confessions as Coronavirus Spreads in Poland (07.04.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022, www.reuters.com/article/us-healthcare-coronavirus-poland-confess-idUSKBN21P325.

Sobański, Remigiusz. Nauki podstawowe prawa kanonicznego [Basic Doctrines of Canon Law]. Vol. 1, Teoria prawa kanonicznego [Theory of Canon Law]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, 2001.

Sobański, Remigiusz. Nauki podstawowe prawa kanonicznego [Basic Doctrines of Canon Law]. Vol. 2, Teologia prawa kościelnego [Theology of Canon Law]. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kardynała Stefana Wyszyńskiego, 2001.

Smith, Marie-Danielle. “Taking Confession in a Time of Coronavirus—One Driver at a Time (07.04.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022. www.macleans.ca/news/canada/taking-confessionin-a-time-of-coronavirus-one-driver-at-a-time/.

Wooden, Cindy. “Confession by Phone: Priest Says It Could Be Right in Some Situations (18.03.2020).” Accessed August 5, 2022. cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2020/03/confessionby-phone-priest-says-it-could-be-right-in-some-situations/.

Download

Published : 2022-12-23


NěmecD. (2022). Aequitas canonica and Access to the Sacrament of Penance during the First Wave of COVID-19 in 2020 in the Light of the Principles of Canon Law. Philosophy and Canon Law, 8(2), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.31261/PaCL.2022.08.2.04

Damián Němec  damian.nemec@upol.cz
Palacký University in Olomouc  Czechia
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9960-2452




Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

The Copyright Owners of the submitted texts grant the Reader the right to use the pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative Commons 4.0 International License: Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA). The user can copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose.

1. License

The University of Silesia Press provides immediate open access to journal’s content under the Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Authors who publish with this journal retain all copyrights and agree to the terms of the above-mentioned CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

2. Author’s Warranties

The author warrants that the article is original, written by stated author/s, has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author/s.

If the article contains illustrative material (drawings, photos, graphs, maps), the author declares that the said works are of his authorship, they do not infringe the rights of the third party (including personal rights, i.a. the authorization to reproduce physical likeness) and the author holds exclusive proprietary copyrights. The author publishes the above works as part of the article under the licence "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International".

ATTENTION! When the legal situation of the illustrative material has not been determined and the necessary consent has not been granted by the proprietary copyrights holders, the submitted material will not be accepted for editorial process. At the same time the author takes full responsibility for providing false data (this also regards covering the costs incurred by the University of Silesia Press and financial claims of the third party).

3. User Rights

Under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license, the users are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit the contribution) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the article for any purpose, provided they attribute the contribution in the manner specified by the author or licensor.

4. Co-Authorship

If the article was prepared jointly with other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.

I hereby declare that in the event of withdrawal of the text from the publishing process or submitting it to another publisher without agreement from the editorial office, I agree to cover all costs incurred by the University of Silesia in connection with my application.