Legal Awareness in the Church, or the Awareness of the Church?

Abstract

The article entitled “Legal Awareness in the Church, or the Awareness of the Church” presents the issue of the legal awareness of the members of the Catholic Church against the broader background of the awareness of the Church. Members of the Church are bound by the norms of both ecclesiastical and secular law, the latter setting out the norms for a variety of issues crucial to the activities and mission of the Church. Not infrequently the norms of secular law are irreconcilable with the teaching of the Church, and Church members have to make informed and responsible decisions. Such a situation puts to the test the consistency of a state’s law with natural law, with which canon law endeavours to comply. Thus the article makes a synthesis of issues related to canon law with questions framed by legal theory, the philosophy of law, and by ecclesiology. The author adds his voice to the debate concerning the significance and level of ecclesiastical and legal awareness of the members of the Church, and in par­ticular of lay people. The article addresses the definition and areas of legal awareness, the content and meaning of the awareness of the Church, and also the role of legal awareness in the mission of the Church. In the conclusion of the article there is a summary of the issues it addresses.

Keywords

• prawo kanoniczne
• prawo naturalne
• pedagogika prawa
• socjologia prawa
• teoria i filozofia prawa